Show distance to target?

Just a small quality of life feature request which I thought of while doing my other thread about xp range.

Would it be possible to have the distance to a target be included somewhere in or around it's nameplate whenever we have a hard target selected?

All our spells and ranged attacks and heals and everything has a range, the xp award has a range, etc. But currently there is no way to actually know how far from something you are unless you have a glyph up and cast it, either it will fire and hit or it will fire and nothing happens. This is no fun.

It should be a simple thing that when we have a target selected there is just a little extra display under or beside it's name showing distance.

The info is already there obviously for our skills and xp, just needs to be shown. Please consider

 

Or a target marker you can set at a range you want that leaves a VFX on the ground at that range. Like a small circle or a wisp of smoke.

 

As much as I would like to see an indicator on the glyphs to identify if you're within range or not, there's also a factor of player skill involved... and that concept is more appealing to me.

I already have an issue with someone being able to click on me and seeing exactly how much health and focus points I have. When did this become necessary information?

As far as XP range is concerned, that's something that should be discussed in the other thread.

 

When I am in range the red reticle shows up on the enemy.

 

Yep. I think the reticle is Pink if you are out of range. With NPC's, if you are in range the reticle is Dark Blue and Cyan if you aren't(I think).

 

Player skill does not come from a lack of information, it comes from having the necessary information available and making the best use of it. Guessing what distance my target is at with no indication of whether i'm in range or not for various things does not make anything more skillful.

I don't play with the reticle on, but when does it show up red? At a certain distance? It wouldn't be showing that you are in range for a glyph since if you go to cast a glyph it just casts it and either hits or not if you are in range or not. So i'm a little confused what the red indicates?

 

I... I can't even....

I gave an example that was related to the subject matter (ie: seeing extra information that you wouldn't normally see in real life). Giving examples on a subject matter is a very standard form of communication. Do you always treat those who disagree with you this way?

Knowing how far you are to a target and what abilities you can use is a skill that you develop from practicing playing the game... It differentiates those who merely level up their characters and those who actually learned how to play.

There's two colours: desaturated red and bright red.

Bright red, as far as I know is weapon range. From what I can tell, the reticle turns desaturated red when you have "a" glyph (doesn't matter which) in range. Don't take my word for it, though, those are just speculations on my part.

Odd I don't remember seeing any dark blue...

 

Your examples seemed to have nothing to do with distance (though you explain it better in your reply about information, your original comment just talked about health and focus with no context) and you said we should be talking about xp in the other thread (when no one was talking about xp here). In my other thread your replies to me felt like you didn't read my post at all and were just dismissing it (talking about playing totally safe when it was clear I was well involved in the fighting) and not actually looking at the range issue.


Sorry, maybe i'm just testy from other threads and conversations and am just completely misreading you. I'll delete my snarky reply.

Edit: and I completely disagree with you about guessing distances somehow making a person more skillful. It's just an added unnecessary guessing game that people will get used to and get a feel for, but really shouldn't have to.

In real life sure, you don't have written information available to you about another person, however you have all kinds of cues to make that judgement. You can look at someone and see if they are bleeding out and stumbling and pale and guess that thier "health" is getting low. You can use visual cues to see if someone is having trouble concentrating or is running out of energy or is out of breath. You have references and landmarks and a 3d living world to help you judge distances and adjust accordingly.

None of that sort of thing is available in the game, and so we must rely on the information that the game gives us.

 

It shows red in agro range when the skeletons get up to attack.

 

I cant remember having ranged targeting issues in UO, oh yes we had UOAssist check for range feature. Maybe we need SoTAssist? oh btw Id like SoTAassits having auto gliph stacking thx for that feature in advance......

 

That's why I said 'I Think', but I wasnt that far off.

In Range:



Out of Range:

 

so the dark and light represent in range and out of range.. of what exactly? just your aggro range or range you can talk to them? it obviously doesnt reflect spell range.. i'm a bit confused

 

//

My own quotes from the other thread:

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I appreciate the gesture.

Fair enough. I would argue that the act of playing the game is still within the realm of "real life" and the ability to judge distances would still count but I understand what you mean. As far as health is concerned, seeing a health bar is a bit different than seeing a numerical value; one is a percentile, the other tells you way more about your opponent... like his power level, for example.

I'll be the first guy to enforce the idea of playing a fun video game over some poor real-life simulator but I also believe in "show, don't tell"... and, to me (again, as much as I would like it personally myself), having a clear indication of ability range is borderline too accommodating.

Let's not forget that it ties in with Focus. So a player who has a better grasp of his ability's range would be rewarded by saving up Focus points.

Anyways, I've said my piece and I'm not going to press the issue. It's not a bad idea despite my opposition.

 

I do get where you are coming from, I agree with the health and focus numbers.. they shouldn't show just by clicking on someone.

One thing that would also work instead of showing us the distance is if a glyph just didnt cast if it wasnt in range.

It is very frustrating to eyeball your range to a mob and cast a spell and your glyph just does nothing. Did it get resisted? Did I fizzle? Oh, no, i'm just out of range and casting it did nothing. Sure it just takes a half second to look and see what happened but I feel like that is just an annoyance that doesnt add anything. Simply make a glyph fail to cast when out of range or not be clickable or whatever and problem solved

 

As a quick check the target is somewhat helpful in checking skill range if all I want is a can I heal/hit the target. For healing it's light blue can't hit dark blue can hit however if I'm a skilled player I'm trying to factor things in like elevation into my movements which is way too difficult for the average player to factor in when they are still wondering will I be in range. I really don't want a game where I and my 1% power players buddies are all by ourselves at the top. We do not loose our skills by helping people play. So please devs add in some distance feature so more people can enjoy this great game's deeper mechanics. It could even be toggled in the options if people don't need it.

 

Well, for NPC's it appears to be just to be able to talk to them. But there are similiarly set up colors for fighting. I'm just guessing here, but I believe that if you have any means of attack that could hit your target then the reticle will light up in a darker red color(provided you don't have the strength turned all the way down.) If not, it will be desaturated red(pink) in color. It would be up to you, when you get a valid target, to determine what skill you have that can reach the target if it is on the outskirts of your maximum targeting range.

Not sure if I like that idea, as it would make things a bit too easy for the player, but I would think that could be added in Game option. Just as there is an option to 'Prevent Movement while casting', there could be 'Prevent Casting when out of range.'

 

On that, we can both agree on.

The game needs to at least communicate this through visuals and sounds.