Reimagining the scoreboard
Nordic
Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
With all the discussion lately on how to improve ns2 there seems to be a focus on how to better communicate to rookies. The ns2 scoreboard, seen when pressing the tab key, has room for improvement. I have a few ideas, but they are imperfect. In this post I want to share those ideas and further discuss how to improve the scoreboard.
For reference, here is a picture of the scoreboard in ns2 from the ready room.
Most of my ideas are just extensions of scoreboard improvements already seen on the Tactical Gamer Server. They function well for the purpose of the niche community that plays there. I have been wondering if some of those concepts could be put to use as something ns2 could benefit from.
1) Show what loadout a player has visually with icons.
Tactical Gamer has icons show on the scoreboard if a marine is carrying a welder, mines, and type specific grenades. For the aliens it shows if a player has a tunnel placed, and if it is open or not. This is a great feature because it gives the team better communication. It also looks very nice.
Here are the icons that are in use at tactical gamer.
Examples of use:
Those are just with the icons tactical gamer already has. There could be icons for Carapace, Regen, Celerity, Adrenaline, Phantom, and Aura. This could even be used so rookies can see what the good players upgrades are.
Tactical Gamer does not do this so I don't have real examples I can show you. We have it now but it is text. I am asking you, could this information be better communicated with an icon? Instead of saying fade, it would show a fade icon. Instead of saying JP/Shotgun it would show a jetpack icon and a shotgun icon in the same art style and format as idea #1. Would that be better? Or would you want the icon and the text? Or is the text fine as is?
Third idea was not well received. Putting behind a spoiler.
2) Letting players state lifeforms or khammander preference. Aliens only.
First look at some pictures so can visualize what I am describing.
If you did not notice, I am speaking about the little bubble next to the lifeform. It starts out blank. If you click on it once it becomes a skulk. A second click changes it to gorge. The subsequent clicks change it to lerk, fade, onos, and khammander. One more click and it is blank again.
This is done entirely for planning purposes. It makes it become clear you will have a problem if your entire team wants to onos, or if 6/12 players want to gorge. Of tactical gamer we often use this to make sure we have a good mix of lifeforms. This would not be a rookie feature. Veteran players could use it to improve gameplay quality. This has been in use for months now on TGNS and it is incredibly valuable. It does not always get used but it does not have to be either.
How I imagine this would look in ns2.
What do you think of the 3 ideas I put forward? What they just clutter up the scoreboard too much? Do they improve the scoreboard?
What would you change about the scoreboard? What would you change to communicate with rookies better? How would you make it look better visually? How would you change it to improve the game for veterans?
For reference, here is a picture of the scoreboard in ns2 from the ready room.
Most of my ideas are just extensions of scoreboard improvements already seen on the Tactical Gamer Server. They function well for the purpose of the niche community that plays there. I have been wondering if some of those concepts could be put to use as something ns2 could benefit from.
1) Show what loadout a player has visually with icons.
Tactical Gamer has icons show on the scoreboard if a marine is carrying a welder, mines, and type specific grenades. For the aliens it shows if a player has a tunnel placed, and if it is open or not. This is a great feature because it gives the team better communication. It also looks very nice.
Here are the icons that are in use at tactical gamer.
Welder Icon
Mines Icon
Cluster Grenade Icon
Gas Grenade Icon
Pulse Grenade Icon
Open Tunnel Icon
Closed Tunnel Icon
Mines Icon
Cluster Grenade Icon
Gas Grenade Icon
Pulse Grenade Icon
Open Tunnel Icon
Closed Tunnel Icon
Examples of use:
- You need to be welded, but there are no players nearby at that moment. You look on the scoreboard and you see Nordic has a welder. Nordic happens to be in the other room. You walk over there and ask to be welded.
- If a commander sees a player with a shotgun, a welder, mines, and a gas grenade he might consider prioritizing him with meds because of the pres cost.
- 3 open gorge tunnels are on the field. Marines kill one of the ends. How does a commander know which gorge needs to replace their tunnel? The one with the closed tunnel icon.
In this picture you see there are 2 open gorge tunnels on the field. One player is still a gorge, while the other died and is now a lerk.
In this picture you see a skulk who has a closed tunnel. Marines killed the end that was placed in falls on biodome. This is useful information because he could go gorge again, and place a tunnel somewhere when the opportunity arises.
In this picture you can see some marines have a lot of equipment.
In this picture a lot of marine had bought grenades to kill a tunnel in falls on biodome.
In this picture you see a skulk who has a closed tunnel. Marines killed the end that was placed in falls on biodome. This is useful information because he could go gorge again, and place a tunnel somewhere when the opportunity arises.
In this picture you can see some marines have a lot of equipment.
In this picture a lot of marine had bought grenades to kill a tunnel in falls on biodome.
Those are just with the icons tactical gamer already has. There could be icons for Carapace, Regen, Celerity, Adrenaline, Phantom, and Aura. This could even be used so rookies can see what the good players upgrades are.
Tactical Gamer does not do this so I don't have real examples I can show you. We have it now but it is text. I am asking you, could this information be better communicated with an icon? Instead of saying fade, it would show a fade icon. Instead of saying JP/Shotgun it would show a jetpack icon and a shotgun icon in the same art style and format as idea #1. Would that be better? Or would you want the icon and the text? Or is the text fine as is?
Third idea was not well received. Putting behind a spoiler.
2) Letting players state lifeforms or khammander preference. Aliens only.
First look at some pictures so can visualize what I am describing.
Scoreboard without selection.
Example of scoreboard after selection.
Another example of scoreboard after selection.
Below is a quick 22 second video showing this in action. In the above pictures I edited out the additional scoreboard feature TGNS has that are unrelated to my suggestion.
In the video focus on the bubbles where people select their lifeform preference.
Example of scoreboard after selection.
Another example of scoreboard after selection.
Below is a quick 22 second video showing this in action. In the above pictures I edited out the additional scoreboard feature TGNS has that are unrelated to my suggestion.
In the video focus on the bubbles where people select their lifeform preference.
If you did not notice, I am speaking about the little bubble next to the lifeform. It starts out blank. If you click on it once it becomes a skulk. A second click changes it to gorge. The subsequent clicks change it to lerk, fade, onos, and khammander. One more click and it is blank again.
This is done entirely for planning purposes. It makes it become clear you will have a problem if your entire team wants to onos, or if 6/12 players want to gorge. Of tactical gamer we often use this to make sure we have a good mix of lifeforms. This would not be a rookie feature. Veteran players could use it to improve gameplay quality. This has been in use for months now on TGNS and it is incredibly valuable. It does not always get used but it does not have to be either.
How I imagine this would look in ns2.
- As soon as a player joins aliens the blank bubble shows so players can select a lifeform preference.
- Players select a lifeform preference by clicking on the bubble.
- Each click changes the lifeform. First click is a skulk, second is a gorge, third is a lerk, fourth is a fade, fifth is an onos, 6th is a Khammander, and a 7th click returns to a blank bubble.
- Players do not need to select a lifeforms preference.
- Players are not locked into the selected lifeform.
- The bubbles and lifeforms preference disappear 1 minute after round start. The information is no longer needed.
- If nobody on the team selects a lifeform preference, the bubbles disappear at round start.
- The bubbles are not present on the rookie only servers as described here.
What do you think of the 3 ideas I put forward? What they just clutter up the scoreboard too much? Do they improve the scoreboard?
What would you change about the scoreboard? What would you change to communicate with rookies better? How would you make it look better visually? How would you change it to improve the game for veterans?
Comments
I've been thinking about something like this lately, it would be a little more advanced though:
Players could be able to specify from the readyroom their desired team / alien lifeform / if they want to command.
This info could be used in conjunction with hive score to help balance the teams (this involves hive score being split up into marine/alien/marine commander/alien commander hive scores, like in the old NS2stats).
But it could also just be used as you said, for planning purposes. It could also involve a way for the commanders to be decided by on by a vote, where the candidates are the players who selected they wanted to command that team.
It's sorta complicated but I think a good UI could make it easy to understand.
I think it can be pretty demoralizing for new players to see someone with really high KDs.
Since this game has such a high emphasis on teamwork, I think only the Score should be kept visible. Then we might get new players actually trying to increase their score by res-biting and harvester killing, rather than getting frustrated that they are 1-25.
If you actually look at the pictures I posted, not sure you did, I edited out most of those additional scoreboard stuff that TGNS has. There are at least 3 buttons on the scoreboard that are mostly function to help admin the server. I did not include those in my suggestions.
I can agree that figuring out which grenade is what is hard, like Aeglos said, but that is also easily learned with time. At the very least you know that person has a grenade. The icons are pretty self explanatory and are not buttons so I don't think they are information overload.
The bubbles would certainly be only be used by veterans because they are a bit more confusing. Is that what you meant by buttons, or was all the other fluff that TGNS has?
We have found the bubbles extremely useful for planning purposes. Others have told me in PM's that it would be a great feature for NSL, gathers, and captains which is correct. I think it would still be useful in pubs. Pubs often lack organization. The bubbles would enable players to make ns2 more organized.
In the short 22 second video I begin by asking the team to choose their lifeforms. That was a quick social gesture that prompted players to use the feature, and it is quick and easy to explain if a player does not know how to use it.
Some servers are almost seem religious about using the Force Even teams vote. If the lifeform preference feature (the bubbles) was put into vanilla I could easily see it becoming a common earlygame habit of people asking others to choose their lifeforms.
TGNS has another feature for the captains mode that I did not mention because I did not know how I would even try to put it into vanilla ns2.
Here are some pictures.
That is done all automatically. The TGNS mod collects data on how much each player plays a given lifeform or commander. The brighter the icon the more the player plays that role. The backend does not have much data collected so a lot of the players in those screenshots are not represented correctly yet. In time they will be. I think that is closer to what you are looking for though.
I would not have a problem with that myself. I also think it might help teamplay a bit. In fact I really like the idea because it would free up space for the suggestions I have given in the OP.
I can see a lot players getting upset about that too.
Not sure about 3), though at least who gorges at start seems to be important for teams to communicate efficiently. Maybe instead of eggs comm could give free liveforms directly there too (e.g. free Onos to best player as a bid for victory)
@Nordic Whats idea nr 2? There is 1) and then 3)?
You caught me in my many edits. #2 was at one point an extension of #1. #3 was at one point what I mentioned to videoP until I decided not to mention it.
I was really hoping someone would propose a better way to do what I described. Thank you.
Rereading videop's post and yours again, maybe there is something to this idea as apart of the new hive 2 system.
When I gorge or command I typically lose because the hive skill system expects me to carry the team. If I stated a gorge preference, maybe it would only count half of my hive skill. Who knows.
Come on...
great point. this happens to me a lot since i usually like to gorge on aliens, but kill stuff on marines. this is another reason for hive score to be separated into alien/marine/alien comm/marine comm hive scores.
So going fade is considered stacking now?
Since when is axe and riflebutts considered stacking?
I doubt this will be an issue Biege, it hasn't been in the past and I doubt it will be now, @Nordic is just providing a visual aid for rookies and regulars, I could even see this being put to effective use in comp play too!
If this does go ahead, can I recommend matching the grenades to the icons, red = cluster, blue = nerve gas, white = pulse?
@rantology
The alien upgrades has great potential to help rookies learn the game. For one, rookies can see what upgrades the good players use. As a veteran I will ask why other veterans use certain upgrades. Secondly, I have seen rookies not using upgrades on the scoreboard. By knowing they don't have upgrades I was able to instruct them specifically how to do it.
The sad part is that even after telling rookies how to upgrade, sometimes they ask me "Why do I need that?" If upto 30% more speed and 30% more armor is not convincing I don't know what is.
dont get me wrong, looks nice but it has no real usage in the game
I regularly find all of the icons useful when playing on TGNS -- moreso than I anticipated, and I'm the guy who originally went to the trouble to add them.
That having been said, they're commonly overlooked and irrelevant, but they're harmless during those moments. I haven't heard complains of folks struggling to consume the scoreboard's other information since adding them.
Knowing which rookies have which upgrades is a fine boon to mentoring.
Not sure if it is regarding the icon, but if so a tooltip (mini-popups when hovering mouse, as for badges) could solve that.
TGNS has a lot of buttons on the scoreboard that are irrelevant to most ns2 servers. That is what Samus is referring to. I edited most of them out of the pictures I showed to suit my purposes. I would agree that all the little buttons that TGNS has could lead to information overload.
But just the marine equipment and alien upgrades is a really good addition. Little tool tips would be even better.
Most of the TGNS-specific icons you edited out do not appear for players new to TGNS. They appear only after you're a regular on the server.
If hate to see kills assists and deaths removed though. Sometimes that's the only thing that will convince your team to concede when it's over.. Like when one Marine has over double the kills of the entire Alien team combined...
Its also nice for a laugh sometimes, like when you go Lerk or Fade and end up with like 6 kills and 80 assists.
I also don't think it would alleviate the feeling of being stomped. I've had times where it feels like I've been killed by the same guy like 20 times, but the scoreboard shows like 7-8 deaths. Not to mention you'd lose that feeling of accomplishment when you go from having 1-20 games to having 20-10 games.
Uh, who said anything about removing those. I certainly did not. Looking at my pictures, it looks like I cropped out the K A and D headers but the numbers are still there.