IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited February 2012
Ok, so Dxtory isn't recording at 60 fps like i wanted to, so the video will have to wait, BUT:
Has anyone noticed (Yuuki?) that strafing absolutely <u>KILLS </u>walljumping?? i just did comparison videos and oh man.. doesnt matter what direction either, it literally terminates your velocity. huge difference. (tested using your mod as well, Yuuki) wish i knew this for all the games i've been playing already.. did they mention this somewhere and i not see it?
*EDIT*: this might just be your mod, yuuki. been playing vanilla and it doesnt hold. so nvm.
Hello, does Personal Res overflow into Team res at 100 like was mentioned a couple of builds ago still?
Oh, and I like IE's idea of toggleable health bars onscreen for coms, sometimes its a bit hard to constantly look bottom right of screen for such important com info like 'do i need to medpack my minions?' - especially if playing at 1920x1080 and relying on text to display this info.
<!--quoteo(post=1905002:date=Feb 19 2012, 08:14 PM:name=OnosFactory)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (OnosFactory @ Feb 19 2012, 08:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905002"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hello, does Personal Res overflow into Team res at 100 like was mentioned a couple of builds ago still?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1905007:date=Feb 19 2012, 08:22 PM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ Feb 19 2012, 08:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905007"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This was posted by blink in the screenshot thread
You can hardly see what is going on because of the text.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm quite sure that the texts will be replaced by icons, once they are designed. NS1 had a lot of distinct and effective icons.
I like the +<number> on kills. It lets me know instantly when I've killed something. I guess it's my own fault for playing with a 24" monitor, but looking at the death messages at top right, minimap in top left... they're way too far away to look comfortably at when I'm concentrated looking at the middle. Glancing down at health/energy is way annoying too. They should be a bit more distinctive or scale up a bit more on larger resolutions.
The yellow text provides instant gratification as a reward for performing actions helpful to the team. I can understand why pro players would find it distracting and annoying - you guys already know exactly what is helpful for the team.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.
So perhaps an option that allows pro players to turn it off, but leaving it on by default.
<!--quoteo(post=1905078:date=Feb 20 2012, 09:20 AM:name=NS2HD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NS2HD @ Feb 20 2012, 09:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905078"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The yellow text provides instant gratification as a reward for performing actions helpful to the team. I can understand why pro players would find it distracting and annoying - you guys already know exactly what is helpful for the team.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.
So perhaps an option that allows pro players to turn it off, but leaving it on by default.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have mentioned this before also. I would like to see the option to turn off this or even an option to make it less noticeable/dimmer. I know how much res I am getting for doing stuff now and that pressing E builds structures. Great for new players but annoying after you know what you are doing.
Off topic. I have noticed that I often do not get credited with personal res now for building/parasite etc in 197.
You never got p-res for building or parasiting or welding etc, only for kills. But many people believed and still believe they do, because that's what the numbers say. Which is why the numbers should be removed. They let people (even those who have played for months) draw wrong conclusions.
<!--quoteo(post=1904939:date=Feb 20 2012, 02:27 AM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Feb 20 2012, 02:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1904939"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->eehhhh while i despise immersive destroying on screen text, I wouldnt go <i>that </i>far.. players, especially new ones.. need to know the consequences of their actions and what their goals are / what they are rewarded for - <b>feedback</b>. Sure okay, the +30 notification is sightly COD style, but that doesnt mean scrap the need for notification. it just means find a better way :)
if i were a new player, and I didn't know i got resources for doing certain things i may be more inclined to just be support and not as active in building/teamwork etc. All I'm saying is: dont forget to reward the player for his actions, this includes letting them know they've A) done something good B) been rewarded for it. feedback, basically.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
EDIT: different answer.
You are talking about humans like if they are dogs.
When humans make a race they want to win, because they know that they are in competition. When you want dogs to make a race you have to give them direct feedback such as tasty things when they made the right thing (running). They don't know that they won.
Please don't think that humans are that stupid. A good 'splat'-sound and visualization is all you need. Because the player, no matter how stupid he is, knows that he just startet a shooter - and that he has to hit to be successful. The yellow numbers are really disturbing.
I don't think the yellow text is the reason people assume there's still RFK. It's not like the number lines up with the amount you make. It's just an assumption carried over from earlier builds, they'll figure it out sooner or later.
Humans might not be stupid like dogs but positive reinforcement still feels good. Score is an abstraction of your personal contribution to the team, and showing you how many points you made helps give that warm fuzzy feeling. I don't think it's critical for kills since people want to do that anyway, but it's important IMO to show it for other tasks like parasiting people, repairing/building, etc because otherwise it's not clear that those things are worth points too. And like it or not, many people in pub games are motivated by topping the scoreboard so you want to guide them down the right path.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
The yellow text now relates to your score, but we still see it as RFK because it was used as such. However when a newbie goes into this game world they will initially assume it to be a score as they haven't been partaking in earlier builds. I'm not a fan though, too gimmicky, the kill sound should be more the enough...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The yellow text provides instant gratification as a reward for performing actions helpful to the team. I can understand why pro players would find it distracting and annoying - you guys already know exactly what is helpful for the team.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No. Using a text overlay to give feedback is simply bad design. The game already has an advanced engine to draw things in game, as well as a sound engine. Like I said :
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you need a text overlay to notify kills then there is something wrong with visual/sound feedback.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Each life form has (should have) a death animation/sprite and a specific death sound. You can play with these to get a proper feedback instead of hiding them with some cheap text. Drawing an ugly text on top of beautiful, gpu intensive 3D scene is just horrendous. And of course it has nothing to do with "pro players".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->*EDIT*: this might just be your mod, yuuki. been playing vanilla and it doesnt hold. so nvm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I did that a while ago, I wouldn't have expected it to work at all.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->is there a way in LUA to disable that minimap at the top left of my screen? i DESPISE it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can post that somewhere if you want, I wanted to do a minimal gui mod at some point, but I read somewhere that the gui will be reworked soon, so it's probably better to wait for it.
<!--quoteo(post=1905135:date=Feb 20 2012, 04:26 PM:name=Zek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zek @ Feb 20 2012, 04:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905135"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think the yellow text is the reason people assume there's still RFK. It's not like the number lines up with the amount you make. It's just an assumption carried over from earlier builds, they'll figure it out sooner or later<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People also assumed they got res for building and parasiting because of the +1, even though they never actually got res. And when they noticed they don't get res for it they assume it's a bug. See a few posts above.
It's simply distracting and confusing and serves no purpose.
<!--quoteo(post=1905112:date=Feb 20 2012, 12:47 PM:name=NurEinMensch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NurEinMensch @ Feb 20 2012, 12:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905112"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You never got p-res for building or parasiting or welding etc, only for kills. But many people believed and still believe they do, because that's what the numbers say. Which is why the numbers should be removed. They let people (even those who have played for months) draw wrong conclusions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have been playing since the alpha came out and didn't know that. I read that res for kills was removed? Is this also wrong? So what do I get personal res for? Although we shouldn't need it, where is the incentive to build or a simple thing like parasite to show other members of my team where marines and structures are. If we are not getting res for this why even show it on screen? Surely buidling, parasiting, working as a team etc should be as important if not more important than kills?
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
You get Pres from resnodes now to promote expanding and protecting areas and working as a team is the only way to accomplish this. And it negates turtling to some extend.
Personally I love the points notification. If you shoot and kill something at long distance should that really give you sound feedback? I prefer the notificated of either +5 of +7 to tell me whether it was the Gorge I killed or the Skulk that was chilling nearby. I could glance at the kill notifications to see it was the Gorge I killed but by then the Skulk is already eating my face off - using the +7 score I know to keep an eye out/keep firing.
I would not call myself a 'pro' but between NS1 and NS2 I have put in quite alot of time - enough to call myself experienced so I don't think the divide between players finding the points notification system good/bad lies down that line. I guess it's more of an aesthetic choice. I actually quite like the distinction between the Aliens relatively sparse natural user interface compared to the marines technologically orientated HUD.
There are actually a range of Masters/PHD studies on this sort of thing; if you care enough it might be worth have a quick look over their abstracts. In particular I would suggest looking at some of the works by <a href="http://folk.uib.no/st01206/" target="_blank">Kristine Jørgensen</a>; specifically the April 2011 article published on Gamasutra.
<!--quoteo(post=1905135:date=Feb 20 2012, 03:26 PM:name=Zek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zek @ Feb 20 2012, 03:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905135"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think it's critical for kills since people want to do that anyway, but it's important IMO to show it for other tasks like parasiting people, repairing/building, etc because otherwise it's not clear that those things are worth points too. And like it or not, many people in pub games are motivated by topping the scoreboard so you want to guide them down the right path.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, but I don't understand you people. There are ######, yes, but the majority of humans work in a team without being rewarded with 'money' or 'points'. They do it, because teamplay feels good. Everyone of you guys who say we should have points for actions, would you say that YOU wouldn't act when there are no points for that? Please think about that - and please think about why are you accusing other people to behave like that?
NS1 was perfect in terms of teamplay and rewarding. Without any points at all. Just with communication. I still have great NS1 games. When there is a rambo, hell, then it is his job in the team to rambo. The other ones play different. There was never a real problem with that.
I am someone who is motivated by the scoreboard in every shooter, but I am also a teamplayer. I am not motivated by points, only by k/d ratio, because it tells much more about skill in a shooter. Points usually tell you who first entered the game.
Whatever I don't care about rewarding and medals or whatever, but if it is implemented, please don't display texts close to the crosshair. That's all I want. And please finally get the reifle reload normalized, without a autonomous moving view ;)
<!--quoteo(post=1905140:date=Feb 20 2012, 03:46 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Feb 20 2012, 03:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905140"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Each life form has (should have) a death animation/sprite and a specific death sound. You can play with these to get a proper feedback instead of hiding them with some cheap text. Drawing an ugly text on top of beautiful, gpu intensive 3D scene is just horrendous. And of course it has nothing to do with "pro players".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So true. If the text in the middle of the screen is the best way to convey whats going on in the heat of battle, then the whole game should turn into this:
All we need is a death sound for each alien. A loud painful cry to let the marine know they killed something. Corpses that stay around longer than 3 seconds, and pools of alien blood would help too!
Here is my attempt at design log for the marine GUI :
0. Make <b>everything</b> configurable, people love it when they can configure things.
Now we can discuss the default GUI.
Design goals :
1. Provide precise information when needed. 2. Hide all unnecessary information, to avoid brain overflow. This is particularly important for new players. 3. Look good.
What do we really need to see all the time ? Health and ammo. That's all.
So, move everything else on the map/scoreboard panel (we will be using the map panel a lot anyway).
<b>In-game indications</b>
- Teammates names: we don't want to see the names of our teammates all the time. The name should be displayed only when we really want to see it. So the name is displayed only if we stare at a someone for a significant time (like one second). Health/armor should be indicated by some circle on the ground or something like it (on by default for the commander).
- Enemy names: Not really useful. Remove those.
- Score indicator: "+30". As explained above, remove it.
- Tooltips (E key logo, structures names, etc.). On by default for accessibility with an option to disable them.
- Waypoints. Draw line on the ground in-game. Remove the triangle thing. Draw waypoints on the map.
<!--quoteo(post=1905480:date=Feb 21 2012, 04:28 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Feb 21 2012, 04:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1905480"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Here is my attempt at design log for the marine GUI :
0. Make <b>everything</b> configurable, people love it when they can configure things.
Now we can discuss the default GUI.
Design goals :
1. Provide precise information when needed. 2. Hide all unnecessary information, to avoid brain overflow. This is particularly important for new players. 3. Look good.
What do we really need to see all the time ? Health and ammo. That's all.
So, move everything else on the map/scoreboard panel (we will be using the map panel a lot anyway).
<b>In-game indications</b>
- Teammates names: we don't want to see the names of our teammates all the time. The name should be displayed only when we really want to see it. So the name is displayed only if we stare at a someone for a significant time (like one second). Health/armor should be indicated by some circle on the ground or something like it (on by default for the commander).
- Enemy names: Not really useful. Remove those.
- Score indicator: "+30". As explained above, remove it.
- Tooltips (E key logo, structures names, etc.). On by default for accessibility with an option to disable them.
- Waypoints. Draw line on the ground in-game. Remove the triangle thing. Draw waypoints on the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> +1 (maybe extra thread?)
The join phase could use some refinement for public games. I think players need to be encouraged more to organize themselves into good (somewhat even) teams. Often, 15 secs SEEM to short. How about not starting the game until all have clicked their "ready" button, and THEN performing the "team has too many players" check. Switching teams during this phase should be a matter of one click. Late joiners should then be treated the way are now, although the loss of PRES upon team switch sometimes hurts quite a bit. I am also a friend of rating players an displaying little badge-like icons before their names, like they did on some NS1 servers. Competative teams could easily be made by avoiding an "icon stack".
When the map changes and starts loading instantly, I'm missing the brief RR moment for all to comment on the last round.
Most importantly, there should be a phasegate-like feature for players to pass coffee, snacks or smokes across the web. Could you please start working on a hardware solution.
Hydras clip through walls, especially noticeable when placed on the 'other side' of doors.
Skulks biting people with their 'elbows'
On a more subtle note, NS1 phase gates allowed marines to jump out of them. Now we've gone from 6 degrees of freedom to 2. Plus if you build them side on you get stuck by the 'unfolding' animation. Hungry phase gate!
I'd just like to point out people have different psychological reactions, assuming that because it doesn't motivate you, or that you don't understand it doesn't mean that it isn't effective to others.
As has already been stated, this should be configurable, I also it should be on by default as it provides useful feedback and re-enforcement to new players in an incredibly complex game. However I can equally understand that some people might find it distracting or some how degrading but NS1 was very difficult to learn, one of NS2s stated goals is to be easier to learn, the notification text helps.
Comments
Has anyone noticed (Yuuki?) that strafing absolutely <u>KILLS </u>walljumping??
i just did comparison videos and oh man.. doesnt matter what direction either, it literally terminates your velocity. huge difference. (tested using your mod as well, Yuuki)
wish i knew this for all the games i've been playing already.. did they mention this somewhere and i not see it?
*EDIT*: this might just be your mod, yuuki. been playing vanilla and it doesnt hold. so nvm.
Oh, and I like IE's idea of toggleable health bars onscreen for coms, sometimes its a bit hard to constantly look bottom right of screen for such important com info like 'do i need to medpack my minions?' - especially if playing at 1920x1080 and relying on text to display this info.
Not Team Res, but Personal Res for other players~
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/rjKpp.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
You can hardly see what is going on because of the text.
You can hardly see what is going on because of the text.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm quite sure that the texts will be replaced by icons, once they are designed. NS1 had a lot of distinct and effective icons.
Glancing down at health/energy is way annoying too. They should be a bit more distinctive or scale up a bit more on larger resolutions.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.
So perhaps an option that allows pro players to turn it off, but leaving it on by default.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.
So perhaps an option that allows pro players to turn it off, but leaving it on by default.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have mentioned this before also. I would like to see the option to turn off this or even an option to make it less noticeable/dimmer. I know how much res I am getting for doing stuff now and that pressing E builds structures. Great for new players but annoying after you know what you are doing.
Off topic. I have noticed that I often do not get credited with personal res now for building/parasite etc in 197.
Sal
if i were a new player, and I didn't know i got resources for doing certain things i may be more inclined to just be support and not as active in building/teamwork etc. All I'm saying is: dont forget to reward the player for his actions, this includes letting them know they've A) done something good B) been rewarded for it. feedback, basically.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
EDIT: different answer.
You are talking about humans like if they are dogs.
When humans make a race they want to win, because they know that they are in competition.
When you want dogs to make a race you have to give them direct feedback such as tasty things when they made the right thing (running). They don't know that they won.
Please don't think that humans are that stupid. A good 'splat'-sound and visualization is all you need. Because the player, no matter how stupid he is, knows that he just startet a shooter - and that he has to hit to be successful. The yellow numbers are really disturbing.
Humans might not be stupid like dogs but positive reinforcement still feels good. Score is an abstraction of your personal contribution to the team, and showing you how many points you made helps give that warm fuzzy feeling. I don't think it's critical for kills since people want to do that anyway, but it's important IMO to show it for other tasks like parasiting people, repairing/building, etc because otherwise it's not clear that those things are worth points too. And like it or not, many people in pub games are motivated by topping the scoreboard so you want to guide them down the right path.
For new players, reviewers, people trying the game out, people watching the game, the yellow text is a very important piece of feedback that communicates how your actions affect the team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No. Using a text overlay to give feedback is simply bad design. The game already has an advanced engine to draw things in game, as well as a sound engine. Like I said :
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you need a text overlay to notify kills then there is something wrong with visual/sound feedback.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Each life form has (should have) a death animation/sprite and a specific death sound. You can play with these to get a proper feedback instead of hiding them with some cheap text. Drawing an ugly text on top of beautiful, gpu intensive 3D scene is just horrendous. And of course it has nothing to do with "pro players".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->*EDIT*: this might just be your mod, yuuki. been playing vanilla and it doesnt hold. so nvm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I did that a while ago, I wouldn't have expected it to work at all.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->is there a way in LUA to disable that minimap at the top left of my screen? i DESPISE it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can post that somewhere if you want, I wanted to do a minimal gui mod at some point, but I read somewhere that the gui will be reworked soon, so it's probably better to wait for it.
People also assumed they got res for building and parasiting because of the +1, even though they never actually got res. And when they noticed they don't get res for it they assume it's a bug. See a few posts above.
It's simply distracting and confusing and serves no purpose.
I have been playing since the alpha came out and didn't know that. I read that res for kills was removed? Is this also wrong? So what do I get personal res for? Although we shouldn't need it, where is the incentive to build or a simple thing like parasite to show other members of my team where marines and structures are. If we are not getting res for this why even show it on screen? Surely buidling, parasiting, working as a team etc should be as important if not more important than kills?
Sal
I would not call myself a 'pro' but between NS1 and NS2 I have put in quite alot of time - enough to call myself experienced so I don't think the divide between players finding the points notification system good/bad lies down that line. I guess it's more of an aesthetic choice. I actually quite like the distinction between the Aliens relatively sparse natural user interface compared to the marines technologically orientated HUD.
There are actually a range of Masters/PHD studies on this sort of thing; if you care enough it might be worth have a quick look over their abstracts. In particular I would suggest looking at some of the works by <a href="http://folk.uib.no/st01206/" target="_blank">Kristine Jørgensen</a>; specifically the April 2011 article published on Gamasutra.
Sorry, but I don't understand you people.
There are ######, yes, but the majority of humans work in a team without being rewarded with 'money' or 'points'. They do it, because teamplay feels good. Everyone of you guys who say we should have points for actions, would you say that YOU wouldn't act when there are no points for that? Please think about that - and please think about why are you accusing other people to behave like that?
NS1 was perfect in terms of teamplay and rewarding. Without any points at all. Just with communication. I still have great NS1 games. When there is a rambo, hell, then it is his job in the team to rambo. The other ones play different. There was never a real problem with that.
I am someone who is motivated by the scoreboard in every shooter, but I am also a teamplayer. I am not motivated by points, only by k/d ratio, because it tells much more about skill in a shooter. Points usually tell you who first entered the game.
Whatever I don't care about rewarding and medals or whatever, but if it is implemented, please don't display texts close to the crosshair. That's all I want. And please finally get the reifle reload normalized, without a autonomous moving view ;)
So true. If the text in the middle of the screen is the best way to convey whats going on in the heat of battle, then the whole game should turn into this:
<img src="http://www.hookedgamers.com/content/features/235/l_WpocfU_large.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
All we need is a death sound for each alien. A loud painful cry to let the marine know they killed something. Corpses that stay around longer than 3 seconds, and pools of alien blood would help too!
<center><object width="450" height="356"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fhDMRQftgv4"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fhDMRQftgv4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="356"></embed></object></center>
A problem is that the death animation feels a bit delayed compared to the top-right notification.
Or change "self.scoreDisplay:SetIsVisible(true)" to "self.scoreDisplay:SetIsVisible(false)"
0. Make <b>everything</b> configurable, people love it when they can configure things.
Now we can discuss the default GUI.
Design goals :
1. Provide precise information when needed.
2. Hide all unnecessary information, to avoid brain overflow. This is particularly important for new players.
3. Look good.
What do we really need to see all the time ? Health and ammo. That's all.
So, move everything else on the map/scoreboard panel (we will be using the map panel a lot anyway).
<b>In-game indications</b>
- Teammates names: we don't want to see the names of our teammates all the time. The name should be displayed only when we really want to see it. So the name is displayed only if we stare at a someone for a significant time (like one second). Health/armor should be indicated by some circle on the ground or something like it (on by default for the commander).
- Enemy names: Not really useful. Remove those.
- Score indicator: "+30". As explained above, remove it.
- Tooltips (E key logo, structures names, etc.). On by default for accessibility with an option to disable them.
- Waypoints. Draw line on the ground in-game. Remove the triangle thing. Draw waypoints on the map.
0. Make <b>everything</b> configurable, people love it when they can configure things.
Now we can discuss the default GUI.
Design goals :
1. Provide precise information when needed.
2. Hide all unnecessary information, to avoid brain overflow. This is particularly important for new players.
3. Look good.
What do we really need to see all the time ? Health and ammo. That's all.
So, move everything else on the map/scoreboard panel (we will be using the map panel a lot anyway).
<b>In-game indications</b>
- Teammates names: we don't want to see the names of our teammates all the time. The name should be displayed only when we really want to see it. So the name is displayed only if we stare at a someone for a significant time (like one second). Health/armor should be indicated by some circle on the ground or something like it (on by default for the commander).
- Enemy names: Not really useful. Remove those.
- Score indicator: "+30". As explained above, remove it.
- Tooltips (E key logo, structures names, etc.). On by default for accessibility with an option to disable them.
- Waypoints. Draw line on the ground in-game. Remove the triangle thing. Draw waypoints on the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1 (maybe extra thread?)
Often, 15 secs SEEM to short. How about not starting the game until all have clicked their "ready" button, and THEN performing the "team has too many players" check.
Switching teams during this phase should be a matter of one click. Late joiners should then be treated the way are now, although the loss of PRES upon team switch sometimes hurts quite a bit.
I am also a friend of rating players an displaying little badge-like icons before their names, like they did on some NS1 servers. Competative teams could easily be made by avoiding an "icon stack".
When the map changes and starts loading instantly, I'm missing the brief RR moment for all to comment on the last round.
Most importantly, there should be a phasegate-like feature for players to pass coffee, snacks or smokes across the web. Could you please start working on a hardware solution.
Hydras clip through walls, especially noticeable when placed on the 'other side' of doors.
Skulks biting people with their 'elbows'
On a more subtle note, NS1 phase gates allowed marines to jump out of them. Now we've gone from 6 degrees of freedom to 2. Plus if you build them side on you get stuck by the 'unfolding' animation. Hungry phase gate!
As has already been stated, this should be configurable, I also it should be on by default as it provides useful feedback and re-enforcement to new players in an incredibly complex game. However I can equally understand that some people might find it distracting or some how degrading but NS1 was very difficult to learn, one of NS2s stated goals is to be easier to learn, the notification text helps.