Damage feedback
Uh-Oh
Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6917Members
Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6917Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Visual and audio feedback for when players take damage</div>Hello!
Just had a play session with 3 friends. 2 played NS1 a little in the day, and the other one was new to NS as a whole.
All 3 enjoyed their experience, but they were all annoyed that they were being killed in 1 hit.
I had to explain to them that they were not in fact 1 shot by bullets or bites, but rather that they didn't notice they were taking damage.
No matter the reason (busy with tasks, fighting, admiring), all 3 could not notice when they were taking damage, unless it lasted for a good moment, and even then.
It could be that the audio or video feedback is not sufficient, or something else entirely, but please make it more obvious when the player is taking damage, as this is a crucial part of the core experience. It's not a game breaking problem, but all 3 were annoyed and died because they couldn't detect they were being harmed (I played as a skulk versus them, and managed to kill all 3 while they were building a RT, and they just didnt see their health drop).
And it's not just them, I hear other people mention this. This is especially true if aliens have silence. While aliens should be silent, it should be fairly obvious to the player when parts of his genitals are missing.
Just had a play session with 3 friends. 2 played NS1 a little in the day, and the other one was new to NS as a whole.
All 3 enjoyed their experience, but they were all annoyed that they were being killed in 1 hit.
I had to explain to them that they were not in fact 1 shot by bullets or bites, but rather that they didn't notice they were taking damage.
No matter the reason (busy with tasks, fighting, admiring), all 3 could not notice when they were taking damage, unless it lasted for a good moment, and even then.
It could be that the audio or video feedback is not sufficient, or something else entirely, but please make it more obvious when the player is taking damage, as this is a crucial part of the core experience. It's not a game breaking problem, but all 3 were annoyed and died because they couldn't detect they were being harmed (I played as a skulk versus them, and managed to kill all 3 while they were building a RT, and they just didnt see their health drop).
And it's not just them, I hear other people mention this. This is especially true if aliens have silence. While aliens should be silent, it should be fairly obvious to the player when parts of his genitals are missing.
Comments
When doing hit and runs as a fade, I find it hard to judge how much damage I've taken. Sometimes I blink out and find I'm still on 220 health, other times I attack for the same length of time against the same number of enemies then blink out and I find I'm down to 20.
The variation is probably due to the huge skill differentials in pub games, but a way to know your health without having to take your eye off your targets would be helpful to lots of players.
Others will hate the clutter, so it should be an option.
Imho it needs an overhaul on the visual effects for getting hit when using alien vision (so you actually notice it) and it needs way better audio cues that stick better out of the chaos. Personally i would love for all Kharaa lifeforms to play some kind of sound-clip when they lost all their armor and are down to HP only (that's usually the point where you have to be careful playing higher lifeforms) in addition to more clear "getting hit" sounds.
Hit beeps, crosshair colour indicator, crosshair pulse indicator, kill beep, all that kind of thing.
Hit beeps, crosshair colour indicator, crosshair pulse indicator, kill beep, all that kind of thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Editable HUDs is an amazing feature as well. it's incredibly useful to see 250 HP drop down to 100 and having it flash in red or orange closer to the center of your screen instead of that slowly-updating circle that we currently have. Quakelive would even let you set these values for things such as ammo for a quick color indicator on when you were low on ammo.
It's not as clear in NS for some reason. I'd have to look into it to figure out why, but at the time being, all I know is that while a silenced alien should be silent, the marine should still bloody shout like a girl when he feels teeth in his genitalia or spine. He might not know the exact source of the pain (was it a bite, was it a spike?), but he should know where it hurts (thus where the damage comes from).
This will hopefully be tweaked soon. Shouldn't be rocket science to let players know they're taking damage from X direction.
I agree with this. It doesn't really make any sense for a marine not to yell out in pain as huge teeth are biting through his body. I normally get bitten at least twice before I notice due to the lack of audio feedback. Although I do wonder if having feedback on silence like this would nerf the ability too much, it's already on the least preferable hive type for most people.
What if all the Marines are robot clones? Would they be programmed to feel pain? ...would they fear alien teeth?
In NS1, I didn't have a problem, but I played on a smaller 4:3 monitor. These days I've got a 27" widescreen monitor, and the health bar is so tiny (the armour number is barely readable) and far away in the corner, I have to look away from what I'm doing to see it. It's out of my field of view.
Anybody know if there's some way to modify this (enlarge or move the health indicator) without triggering the server consistency checks?