Marine awareness and a couple other suggestions
Petuko
Join Date: 2012-02-01 Member: 143120Members
Join Date: 2012-02-01 Member: 143120Members
Sorry if this has been brought up before. Was playing some NS2 the other night and had some thoughts on how to improve marine's situational awareness in terms of overall match status. While playing, it can be difficult for me as a marine to know where I'm most needed unless the commander is especially adept at making sure I have orders. Here's a few ideas to improve that;
Give an option for the HUD's minimap to show entire map zoomed all the way out, with extremely simplified, very clean graphics/icons that tell me where the command center is, where fellow marines are, and where buildings are. When marine structures or soldiers are under attack, make this much more easy to figure out at a glance. Right now I believe it flashes between green and grey? It's very hard to make out unless you examine the map for precious seconds, and is nigh impossible to read in the peripheral vision. On top of that, it would be really rather spiffy if said minimap gave me a very clear picture of which areas had power, which didn't, and which ones where the power node was under attack.
Essentially I'd like the minmap to function more like the minimap of a good RTS, and less like the radar of FPS games like call of duty or what have you. At least, I'd like the option for that style of minimap.
Another idea I had, is for the commander to be able to place a beacon or some such in an area which says "I need X number of marines to head to this location/attack this area" or etc. This would be a more organic way to give orders, not requiring you to have to go select some marines to give specific orders to.
And speaking of the commander, I would very much like it if the assists (drop ammo, nano shield, health, scan ping, and all that jazz) were in their own separate container instead of one of the "building" tabs. Perhaps in a row along the bottom like a "skill bar"—in fact, very much like the guild wars skill bar. Additionally, it would be nice to have any buildings the marines already have set up which have research options and such to be listed in tabs somewhere for quick access so that I can easily go queue up level 2 armor or what have you, without having to go click back to base and find the building.
Again, sorry if any of this has been brought up. I don't really have time to dedicate to getting super involved with the beta testing, especially as my computer doesn't run the game very well right now (I'm fairly badly CPU limited), and so I don't end up playing as often as I'd like either. But I figured I'd give you guys the input I had, as an NS1 player who is only lightly dabbling in NS2 at the moment.
Give an option for the HUD's minimap to show entire map zoomed all the way out, with extremely simplified, very clean graphics/icons that tell me where the command center is, where fellow marines are, and where buildings are. When marine structures or soldiers are under attack, make this much more easy to figure out at a glance. Right now I believe it flashes between green and grey? It's very hard to make out unless you examine the map for precious seconds, and is nigh impossible to read in the peripheral vision. On top of that, it would be really rather spiffy if said minimap gave me a very clear picture of which areas had power, which didn't, and which ones where the power node was under attack.
Essentially I'd like the minmap to function more like the minimap of a good RTS, and less like the radar of FPS games like call of duty or what have you. At least, I'd like the option for that style of minimap.
Another idea I had, is for the commander to be able to place a beacon or some such in an area which says "I need X number of marines to head to this location/attack this area" or etc. This would be a more organic way to give orders, not requiring you to have to go select some marines to give specific orders to.
And speaking of the commander, I would very much like it if the assists (drop ammo, nano shield, health, scan ping, and all that jazz) were in their own separate container instead of one of the "building" tabs. Perhaps in a row along the bottom like a "skill bar"—in fact, very much like the guild wars skill bar. Additionally, it would be nice to have any buildings the marines already have set up which have research options and such to be listed in tabs somewhere for quick access so that I can easily go queue up level 2 armor or what have you, without having to go click back to base and find the building.
Again, sorry if any of this has been brought up. I don't really have time to dedicate to getting super involved with the beta testing, especially as my computer doesn't run the game very well right now (I'm fairly badly CPU limited), and so I don't end up playing as often as I'd like either. But I figured I'd give you guys the input I had, as an NS1 player who is only lightly dabbling in NS2 at the moment.
Comments
You can actually press c to bring up the big minimap (on aliens as well :P). I swear this is one of the big issues in NS2 right now where the function is very hidden from new players. A 'press c for minimap' tooltip or some such is way overdue.
Yeah, I'm aware of the enlarged C-map, however I would rather like the ability to see everything in the regular minimap without holding C; at least in a very simplified manner. And even when using the C-map, I still feel that the information it provides can take a bit longer to read than it perhaps should—thus my comment about things being attacked only flashing between green and grey. It can be very hard to pick up on that quickly unless you look specifically at all the buildings on the map trying to find out which are being attacked.
There's no way I'm sacrificing the fullscreen map for the minimap, I don't know if I could even read the map if it was compressed that small.
Still, yes I would like to see some different minimap zoom levels, just put it on N or some random key, people won't need to hit it that often.
Still, yes I would like to see some different minimap zoom levels, just put it on N or some random key, people won't need to hit it that often.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why not just rebind the original key to tab....who cares about the scoreboard TBH. The only thing useful from it is checking the Pres of a teammate, and thats for a comm IMO. Rebind the scoreboard key to like P or something that no one needs so we can actually put something useful there (I know you can rebind it, but for people learning the keys tab usually is something that is used more often). I just think C is a pretty random key by default. It would also be nice to have a more minimalistic option for your radar and hud in general (I play most games without crosshairs and any viewmodels so I have bias).