Monster/NPC Health Bars/Names

No health bars - works for me

Really like this idea by InsaneMembrane

" IF, there was a way to collect a history for display of all your feats of killing monsters including taking their heads for display in your home/area of living"

 

Richard, you are awesome...

I love it! Excellent way to make the game more intuitive and "natural" (getting rid of artificial values that take away the focus of what a game should be all about). Opposed to what some people have said, I do believe this adds a great deal of reality to the pve combat area (and even to the pvp if it is implemented right... I can just imagine it!).

In real life, does one see numbers on top of people's heads when they are engaged in combat? No... One doesn't... Richard is attempting to bring some of that realism, which mixes with the unknown/unexpected, while hinting the current status of the event. Really, it is a refreshing and evolutionary idea. Exciting times!

 

If they can replace the health bar with enough visual fidelity in the character model, animation, and AI then this would be great. I'm all for it.

Model would show increasing visual damage, the animation would show it staggering, being slower, etc, and the AI could cause it step back, try to take cover, etc. It sounds like a lot of work but would increase immersion and make combat less of a numbers game. I actually enjoy both styles of play but would love to see SotA try something different and express this all visually.

Perhaps they'll only do this when fighting MOBs, but you'll still know your own stats, and maybe your "party" members will as well to assist with healing.

 

Yes it sounds good to remove health bars for visual damage.
At least for anyone not in your party.
I think your party should have some way to show health.
That could be bars off to the side.

As for names, without them over our heads though I'm not sure how I would know who is who.
If we don't get names then I would want colors.
Colors for your party, criminals, guilds, neutrals, etc.

 

I really like the idea of not having health bars for monsters or other enemies (including PVP). The question is...does that extend to your own character as well? Surely you have some sort of sense of your current state of health, so it doesn't make sense to completely eliminate that information to the player.

But do you really know that you have precisely 24% of your "hit points" remaining? Maybe RG and the team can come up with a different way to communicate your own health status. Maybe your reaction time goes up, spells start mis-firing, you stagger somewhat.

Behind the curtain, I think a probability based system might be interesting. As you take damage, the probability of you dying increases. This could be tied to hit points (that may or may not be shown to the player), e.g. when you're down to 0 HP, maybe you have a 90% chance of dying sometime in the next minute (or whatever time period is appropriate). Maybe at 50% HP, you have a 10% chance of dying within the next minute.

That would definitely (hopefully?) reduce the feeling of grind and predictability so prevalent in other MMOs. In practice, it may be hard to balance properly. Anyways just a thought.

 

I like the idea of indicators so you know if something is injured but without exact numbers. Maybe Green, Yellow, Red indicators or even bettwer would be separate skins on the models reflecting state of health.

Perhaps the right skills would give you a wider range of indicators. Green, Light Green, Dull Yellow, Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple (or a wider range of skins if possible).

I love the concept of injuries so a decent blow to an arm or leg might impact the mobility or ability to weild weapons etc. It would make the taking down of large or dangerous opponents an art of wounding and maiming before it is safe to approach and dispatch.

 

Health bars or no, there needs to be some way to evaluate a monster's health and abilities. Bloodflow, as suggested by LB, seems too imprecise and a lot of graphics work, let alone increasing the gore factor.

In battle, any health indicator will become the focus, be it spouting blood, a diminishing bar or a color halo. i believe the purposes of LB's suggestion were to keep a clean interface and to move away from a numbers game.

First issue - Health. Does progress need to be indicated for every hit or are gross steps acceptable, i.e., 5 steps from 100% to 0% health? Is a transient effect sufficient? Would a quick flash substitute for an always visible indicator? Should health effect the ability to inflict damage? Should it require a skill to evaluate the health of a foe?

Second issue - Damage. Does damage need to be precise or, like above, will a step indicator work? Does it need to be visible or can sound be used? If there are different types of damage should the type be indicated as well? Should damage details require a skill?

Third issue - Foreknowledge. How much should you know about the monster you're facing? How do you learn it and how do you access it? I love the idea of a bestiary. Assume that at the least the names of most monsters are common knowledge. Further info can be shared via "secrets". If kobolds are particularly susceptible to cold attacks and I have successfully used a cold attack against a kobold, I've gained that secret. I can choose to share my secrets by comparing my bestiary with another.

Lastly, can PvP and PvE health and damage be treated the same. Should it, and if so, how?

 

I don't like the idea of crippling or adverse effects as you lose health. Sure, it's realistic, but the problem comes into gameplay mechanics. People would then need to stay at full health all the time, healing becomes the major focus of the game, potions, bandages, healing skills everyone would have to use all options during battle.

No health bars are fine, RG described a few different states to indicate overall health. that is nearly as useful as a health bar so I see no real negatives. He mentioned limping, I hope that means just in the animation, not affecting movement speed (You'd never be able to escape a fight against a full health person).

We'll see how it works in alpha and hopefully it works well.

As far as knowing how much damage you are doing, you'll be able to get an idea by how many hits it takes to get it to reach each state. so your experimentation and memory will need be tested even more than usual. (atleast until someone posts all the info on a website)

 

I myself don't like the id, and it should be implemented so that if it is that way that thoughts of us that would like to see heath bard we can,

That sead this is open source so whats gonna stop someone from making one, out of game add on for doing this?

this is my op please don't troll

 

They may include that in options looking at the 1.7m stretch goal, but it only states minimap

$1.7M: Dynamic and Contested Resource Nodes + Optional Minimap System

Meteorites, volcanic eruptions, outbreaks of rare plants and animals can appear and vanish suddenly (online and offline) for those who are paying attention. Some PVP focused resources appear in tile
Optional minimap system for the directionally impaired!
The Lost Vale - A new mini-adventure centered around a lost valley previously hidden to players, now visible only during special astronomical alignments.

 

I personally think that if the information provided to the player is less detailed and exact, than it adds an element of 'exploration' into that particular activity.

1. Health bars:
- Without these, the player has to learn to pick up on any available (visual or audible) indication of how wounded something is depending on what they are fighting.

2. Damage display (and skill descriptions):
- Without a precise damage display, or detailed (exact) skill descriptions, a player won't simply be able to go into any battle knowing EXACTLY what to expect from a skill (in terms of effectiveness). More general information in a skill description will allow the player to make basic judgments on what to expect, but they will have to try it and find out for some stuff, and if it's ineffective, they will have to run or adapt. This also opens up the possibility of being able to 'explore' new skills by experimenting with them to see what interactions exist for them.

 

Overall, I'd like the game to be difficult for someone to map out on a website.

No easy task with so many intelligent individuals

Usually a game comes out and groups just start listing where everything is and how to master the content. Yes you can avoid those spoiler sites, but the info inevitably leaks out.

Limiting the UI can help defend us VS figuring out "Ideal" builds, but how do you protect the content? I hope the game challenges us all in regards to that aspect.

I know RG won't be listing quest markers, that will help.

 

I think it is possible to remove health bars, although you may still need some kind or rough damage status indicator (undamaged, slightly wounded, majorly damaged, almost dead or whatever). This also brings up if there will be the traditional 'target portrait' that most games have, where you have the name, health, mana/energy/etc. bar and often some other info on your currently selected target. There are a few things that would need to be considered first to make no heath bars really work.

One big thing is if people will reasonably be able to see their foe and be able to see the model changes that show how damaged it is. This might mean limiting how far from the action the camera can be or the models will just be too small on the screen. The other problem is if we have full collision detection or not since that's really the only way to prevent stacks of opponents where they're all one muddled mob of overlapping models.

Next is the model changes need to be obvious and somewhat consistent. As a red-green color deficient person I really don't want red smears to be how I tell if a mob is hurt. I would want several stacking indicators, texture color change can be one but it would be good if there was a difference in the 3D model as well, and hopefully a change in their posture as well.

Just going to a rougher scale of damage may be better from a playability standpoint.

I don't think we really need the ability to see how many hit points they have if generally each type of monster has a similar range of hit points. There are no levels here so you don't need the huge disparity of HP between them in most cases. Huge trolls can have more HP than puny ones.

I'm generally in favor of a simpler UI as long is it isn't a hindrance to playing the game. If you want to get rid of all the timers and stuff people put up on their screen in most MMOs then make it so they don't NEED or want to have it. Don't give me a bunch of cooldowns to constantly watch, give me one or two at most and let me know when they're ready again. Have my DoT attacks stay on the mob until it's dead or they cure it instead of having to watch the duration, and if it does cure it then make sure I can tell it's doing that. I don't expect this to be easy, but it could be rewarding if combat is more about reading your opponent's actions and countering them with your own instead of trying to keep up your sequence of abilities to max out DPS.

 

I am all for no health bars, names etc above heads of NPCs and monsters. Visual feedback like wounds and limping would be cool.
I am even for no UI at all like in Ultima VII. This would be much more immersive.

Some of you might now say that one needs to have health bars and names above heads to have the feedback, as this was the case in any other MMO... And that every other game has an UI so that you can stack our skills and see what is active etc. THIS is why I am totally against SotA becoming similar to UO or other MMOs. Let this be something new, something unique.
In older games like Ultima VII for example there were ne health bars above the heads of monsters and no names. You fought till they died or ran away. Enountering a new monster was excinting as you didn't know what is was called and how powerful it was. I hope that SotA will bring this feeling to games agains. You were in the game, there was nothing distracting you from the world and the immersion, no bars, or other icons littering the screen.

Health bars and names are for those gamers you believe that they are coregamers whereas they are certainly not. It is like mommy taking our hand and telling you "look this is an Orc, he has 15 hitpoints, my dear!".

We need to go as far away from nowadays MMOs as possible with SotA. So no UI at all!

 

Go watch spoony fighting the crab in U9 and then come back and explain to me how that is in any way immersive

 

The underlying game mechanics all together in U9 are bad, not the fact that the mob doesn't have a health bar.

 

@Sir Assguard - "Go watch spoony fighting the crab in U9 and then come back and explain to me how that is in any way immersive."

You know, from what it looks like you are trying to use that game broken crab example from U9 as fodder to toss into this discussion to the point of you supporting health bars? DO tell if I am incorrect, you can't possibly use that as an example to push health bars, or anything other than a game shipping before it is ready.

 

Yes, yes, we can all find the worst example of an idea to denounce the whole idea in general.

My question to you is, what is this cudgel you use called "immersion." I see it used all the time to defend or denounce some particular game aspect but no one goes into any specifics. They just pull this threadbare rabbit out of a hat, wave it in the air and suppose that it's the end of the argument.

 

The crab in U9 was in no way balanced, required no combat skill besides mashing a button, and showed no visual cues of damage. It would have been no less ridiculous if it showed a health bar/numbers. If any part of SotA resembles anything out of U9, we're in trouble and no health bar or lack thereof is going to save us lol...

 

I think SotA will be good and have better tactics than that. If we have no health indicators like Lord British wants I think it will make it even better. If you recognize injuries by how much blood or if a person limps or hunches over so you know they are badly injured, then we may have emotes that can fake injuries too. Faking a bad injury can actually cause a person to unload their endgame tactics too soon, or not use the killing blows thinking you are faking the injury. So not having a health bar I blieve will make the game more interesting.