Enemy Health bars in PVP and the UI setup in the January AoC livestream.

SnowElf · February 1

With the January showcase we were able to see some great PVP action involving the risks and rewards revolving around the caravan system and one thing that was often seen during the combat was enemy health bars, along with other elements displayed on the overall UI.

A beautiful view of Orbificator moments before he turned into a pile of ash.

Here you can also see a pretty clean display of the buffs and debuffs of your enemy target.

And here you can see the Caravan event alert on display, along with a map that has an opacity fade to blend well with the overall screen.

What are your thoughts on the enemy health bars being sectioned off in quadrants without a numerical value up for display, and how do you feel about this UI setup? Personally, I love it and I think the UI is incredibly clean overall. I'm able to use visual cues in game with this type of setup and respond accordingly depending on the situation at hand without knowing too much information. Having a solid UI setup can be very important, and I will spend hours on making the perfect user interface that I find appealing if I have to (it's a double-edged sword, loving front end development, I tell ya!)

I'm also curious to see if Ashes of Creation implements a few different UI options which may include different overlay options, or even entirely different UI loadouts! Lets discuss, tell me your thoughts!

Ludullu · February 1

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

George_Black · February 1

Their plan is good.

SnowElf · February 1

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

If given the option, would you toggle off enemy health bars for yourself?

Ludullu · February 1

SnowElf wrote: »

If given the option, would you toggle off enemy health bars for yourself?

Nah, making myself weaker against other people through UI is not a thing I'd want, cause I will already be doing that by mostly being alone or a casual.

Chicago · February 1

Going into this with an open mind so I'd love to see some responses but I am concerned that this is a terrible game design, being able to see players health is key for so many aspects of pvp, when to use or save CDS, when to be more offensive or defensive, when to swap targets, lots of choices are made given the remaining health of the enemy player, if you should push or if you should cc and run, holding Cds etc,
I cant really think of any positives of not being able to see remaining health and just feel for the overall pvp side of the game it's not a great thing,

I'd like to hear peoples thoughts on this, if you agree with me why?

If you have any ideas as to why this is beneficial I'd love to hear them

Mag7spy · February 2

You shouldn't be able to see any kind of player heath bar in pvp. Which means if you plan to kill someone and not grief you will do so with full intention and not try to get them killed to mobs. It makes it much harder to heath bar harass.

Skill use should be able yourself and winning the fight not about their current heath waiting to try to cc and finish them when they are almost dead. Obviously it makes things more difficult but that is how it should be when you are talking about PvP. It makes winning much more rewarding.

Choices will be made off your own skill and feeling and not on a persons heath bar %.

Granted you can see heath bars in 1/4 so at the end of the day you still have all the information you need. It is more a anti griefing mechanic and why i feel you shouldn't see any part of it to fully accomplish that goal.

In its current state where you can see 1/4ths of their bar if ou are unable to use that information to judge what you need to do, that is a skill issue.25% is almost dead and is plenty of information to do what you need to do.

Dygz · February 2

We'll have to test to get a good feel of whether the Ashes health bars are sufficient.

Mag7spy · February 2

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

That or you can see if they are at 50% (down the road), i feel that is a fair buffer if some skills do extra dmg when they are at 50%. And it be harder to grief effectively.

But I'm also for 0 hp indicators. Intent to kill should be there, as well as making engagements more difficult and coordination / call outs key. As well as reading how players act and using that as information.

Pyrolol · February 2

You should always be able to see the remaining enemy health bar
Wouldn’t mind if they added % but can work without

SnowElf · February 2

Mag7spy wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

That or you can see if they are at 50% (down the road), i feel that is a fair buffer if some skills do extra dmg when they are at 50%. And it be harder to grief effectively.

But I'm also for 0 hp indicators. Intent to kill should be there, as well as making engagements more difficult and coordination / call outs key. As well as reading how players act and using that as information.

I do resonate with you guys on why you don't want health bar indicators, but I still don't prefer that type of gameplay myself. Maybe some classes will be able to obscure their health bars for a time. -shrug-

To be honest, if you're going to PVP, you're going in with the intention of murdering another player and your ultimate goal is to get their hp to 0 before yours reaches 0, regardless if you have an indicator or not.

Chicago · February 2

Mag7spy wrote: »

You shouldn't be able to see any kind of player heath bar in pvp. Which means if you plan to kill someone and not grief you will do so with full intention and not try to get them killed to mobs. It makes it much harder to heath bar harass.

Skill use should be able yourself and winning the fight not about their current heath waiting to try to cc and finish them when they are almost dead. Obviously it makes things more difficult but that is how it should be when you are talking about PvP. It makes winning much more rewarding.

Choices will be made off your own skill and feeling and not on a persons heath bar %.

Granted you can see heath bars in 1/4 so at the end of the day you still have all the information you need. It is more a anti griefing mechanic and why i feel you shouldn't see any part of it to fully accomplish that goal.

In its current state where you can see 1/4ths of their bar if ou are unable to use that information to judge what you need to do, that is a skill issue.25% is almost dead and is plenty of information to do what you need to do.

Thanks for the reply mate I actually missed that you could see upto 25% makes it a bit better, as you said it's a anti griefing mechanic so I wonder if you can turn it off in duels

Undead Canuck · February 2

Players that are not in the same party, raid, alliance, or guild will not be able to see other player's health percentages or exact health bar values.[3][1][2]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Health

Is this what you mean, or did you mean that you want to be able to see players health? Currently the design is to not see health bars unless you are grouped with someone.

For testing, I assume that is turned off.

Undead Canuck · February 2

Duplicate

Vaknar · February 2

There were two threads on this same topic of health bars. They have been merged

SnowElf · February 2

Vaknar wrote: »

There were two threads on this same topic of health bars. They have been merged

Thank you for the merge, Vaknar! =]

Dezmerizing · February 2

I have never played a MMO were you have not had access to non-party members HP bar.

Honestly, I am kinda sold on the idea of no HP bara, the way Mag and Nik described it. It does give players some griefing protection, and it also opens up for friendly player encounters. If I do not know whenever the random player I am passing by is struggling or not, then I might pitch in just to be sure. (... I really hope IP has good plans regarding loot tagging so I don't end up stealing mobs from the people I am trying to help :x )

That said, this is not something that will make or break the game for me - my play style remains the same.

Itsladrana · February 2

I think making any UI things optional is always a good idea. Let people customize how they want. I personally like having health bars so I know what my future moves are but having no numbers is good for the immersion.

daveywavey · February 2

SnowElf wrote: »

What are your thoughts on the enemy health bars being sectioned off in quadrants without a numerical value up for display, and how do you feel about this UI setup?

I think it looks interesting. I don't think I've played a game that segments it like that.

As for the UI itself, I think it looks good.

ELWOW · February 2

I feel like 25% bars are even too much info. It should be divided on 3 parts and just show us 33%/66% and full hp.

Ludullu · February 2

Requiring the knowledge of enemy hp is simply a skill issue.

Git good or, quite literally, die trying

And yes, any hp indicator will directly lead to player harassment. Then people will complain that they're constantly at below half hp (or at around 25% if the current design remains). And then those complains will either lead to "hits give corruption" or to "everyone's a harasser, so flagging on a person for more than a minute gets you banned".

Not seeing hp makes that shit way harder (both pvp and bullying).

Tryol · February 2

I'm fully on board for hidden enemy player health bars, as it could help mitigate harassment.

Also, while being able to see debuffs is fine, I'm not a fan of being able to see the buffs on the UI for enemy players.

If the mage/bard could discover buffs on enemies, that could add some extra flavor to their classes. It's a pretty minor thing but would be very welcome IMO. It could work in PvE as well.

Enigmatic Sage · February 2

anime-pokemon-charmander-running-in-circle-plgmyle4fpg013mr.gif

Dygz · February 2

NiKr wrote: »

Requiring the knowledge of enemy hp is simply a skill issue.

Git good or, quite literally, die trying

And yes, any hp indicator will directly lead to player harassment. Then people will complain that they're constantly at below half hp (or at around 25% if the current design remains). And then those complains will either lead to "hits give corruption" or to "everyone's a harasses, so flagging on a person for more than a minute gets you banned".

Not seeing hp makes that shit way harder (both pvp and bullying).

It's not really a skill issue.
IRL we have many senses to evaluate cues about the health of living creatures.
In video games we primarily have extremely limited vision and significantly fewer visual cues from our opponents regarding Health.
Which is why we typically have some form of guage/meter - in addition to numerical values.

We'll have to see in Alpha 2, whether Steven's design is adequate for most Ashes players.

Veeshan · February 2

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

it doesnt make sense to have 0 indicator of an enemy HP, it does make sense to have indicators as predicted like this in quarters.
At a battle takes plays u get indicators as to how much hp somone would have due to injuries/exhuastion and so on which is shown as 25% segments in this case. People dont look pristine in a fight till they drop down dead :P
Showing dmg on a model is also hard to do too cause its visualy hard to see where the dmg indicators here does cleaner.

Mag7spy · February 2

Veeshan wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

it doesnt make sense to have 0 indicator of an enemy HP, it does make sense to have indicators as predicted like this in quarters.
At a battle takes plays u get indicators as to how much hp somone would have due to injuries/exhuastion and so on which is shown as 25% segments in this case. People dont look pristine in a fight till they drop down dead :P
Showing dmg on a model is also hard to do too cause its visualy hard to see where the dmg indicators here does cleaner.

Its not about making sense more about designing to reduce people avoiding to gain corruption. Corruption on its own or any one system generally isn't enough to deter players. You need multiple avenues to make the percent lower to ensure people are using the system fully as intended.

IE corruption its own can stop 60%, Than not seeing hp wars stops another 10%, than BH stops another 5%, Etc.

If you are worried about corruption not being effective, allowing pvp players more freedom to advert things will be worse.

This is a method used in BDO in my time where you would leave someone almost dead and cc them into mobs and kill them. It was the method used because it was highly effective. And that means you can pick up loot without being corrupted in AoC on top of it.

Granted there are other ways to stop that more effectively.

Ludullu · February 2

I wish all visible HP wanters a very nice "live at 25% hp at all times"

i'm sure you'll love that way more than knowing what your enemy HP is at.

SizeMcWave · February 2

It’s has a very DnD, bloodied, on their last leg kinda vibe that I did not think about ever but find the health bar obfuscation a neat mechanic. I also like that you can talent/class/spec into more granular info. I wouldn’t be opposed to even more player info obfuscation if it still could be overcome by spec choices.

SnowElf · February 3

Also, to mention, if it's one thing I've noticed is that if you do not provide the playerbase with

SizeMcWave wrote: »

It’s has a very DnD, bloodied, on their last leg kinda vibe that I did not think about ever but find the health bar obfuscation a neat mechanic. I also like that you can talent/class/spec into more granular info. I wouldn’t be opposed to even more player info obfuscation if it still could be overcome by spec choices.

I like these ideas! Allowing archetypes to spec into abilities to see more UI elements on screen like healthbars, debuffs or maybe even buffs that can be dispelled, not a bad idea at all.

Smaashley · February 3

I already played a game without enemy health bar and I think it was okay. I experienced a game where we saw health bars and I think it was more of a good experience because I could adjust my cooldowns, change target, etc when necessary. The goal in PvP is to kill isn't it ?

I think a good in-between for those who want a bar and those who don't would be to only show if the player is above or under a certain percentage, let's say 60%. So if the player is between 60% and 100%, the healthbar will be full and if the player is under 60% it will show 60% full.

Perhaps enable my idea above only in caravan PvP and Sieges but not open world ?

Liniker · February 3

NiKr wrote: »

I'd prefer 0 indicators for enemy HP. No good reason to have them.

Otherwise UI looks fine for a WIP.

same for me, wish they went for no indicators like L2

Enemy Health bars in PVP and the UI setup in the January AoC livestream.

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