Counterfleche said:Ideally, the UI will be customizable and we have easy access to healer-friendly layouts.
You could have just said this, and that's all that would have been necessary.
The problem with UIs is that what works for one person might not work for another. There is no catch-all that works for everyone, and more than anything I don't want to play an MMO where I am fighting the UI more than I am fighting mobs.
Forget presets and modifying combat systems to make it "easier" for healers- and I say that as someone that has mained a healer in every major (and a few minor) MMO since Vanilla WoW- all we really need is a UI that is customizable enough that any individual player can modify it, within reason, to suit their preference.
What constitutes "within reason" in that sense is, of course, up to VR.
Am I crazy or didn't Pantheon used to have damage show what was *going* to apply and then gradually 'fill in' the overhead bars (and on the team bars)?
That would at least give the healer more time to react and let them monitor anyone in the 3D view (at least the tank).
Personally, though, I don't like to clutter the 3D view - I prefer all that stuff to be in the UI, even if it means looking at the UI a lot.
I'm not sure slowing down mob DPS just to give players more time to react would be a good thing. If the fastest that incoming damage can occure is 2-3 seconds, then the bar for reaction times by the player is severly lowered. There would be no such thing as spike damage for example - which in turn could lead to a much easier to play game with fewer surprises.
I suppose you could offset this by making sure all cast times are 2+ seconds long - but that also limits them in terms of being able to create fast/instant cast spells too.
Options to size/show player HP bars would be a good thing in terms of allowing data required for healers to be in the 3D view while not requiring it to be visible or so in your face for everyone else.
What if there was an option to tint your group members actual chracters? So, I'm picturing the character themself can be an HP bar with the tint filling in from head to toes as damage is taken. if no damage, you look normal. If 10% damange your head has a red tint overlay (partially transparent). This would allow you to watch what was going on, while watching your party's HP as well.
Disposalist said: "Am I crazy or didn't Pantheon used to have damage show what was *going* to apply and then gradually 'fill in' the overhead bars (and on the team bars)?"
Not exactly... it wasn't the damage that was 'going' to apply, it was damage already done, but it indicated how much damage you had just recently taken. Here is where they talked about it:
June 23, 2016: (source) at timestamp: 38:20
Ben Dean said: ”Can you sort of explain what's happening with the health bars above the NPCs, cause you see the green health bars but then you see the end of it just kinda turn red so can you explain what's happening."
Joppa said: "It's just damage. The green is the full health bar, and then as the NPC is taking damage the red colour indicates how much life has been lost."
John said: "More of a tactile feedback on it."
Joppa said: "That's right, as you lose life instead of just being an empty bar it's filled with red to make it a little more noticable."
John said: "And slowly sort of chips away, it will trickle almost like a loading bar."
Same video just a few minutes later at timestamp: 40:00
Joppa said: "As soon as the nuke lands, you will see the amount of damage that I do show up in Red colour on this Mercenary."
John said: "And then it trickles down."
Joppa said: "That's more of a refinement to the way that the mechanic works. It fills with red and then as the damage has been done over a certain period of time if there is a break in damage then that red bar will deplete down to the green and reveal an empty health bar. Just a way of tracking the life of NPC's and PC's as it depletes. The Red stays longer if the mob is taking several concurrent amounts of damage, and the red will stay a little bit longer as that damage is calculated but as soon as there is a break in damage it will compensate. It's helpful cause if mobs are taking a lot of damage at once it's easier to keep track of how much damage is being done if it's not always updating."
Joppa said: "We've talked internally about using that as an intentional mechanic with maybe particular class abilities that can capitalize on that window before the red depletes. Not something we have any specific details on yet, but it could be."
eunichron said:Counterfleche said:Ideally, the UI will be customizable and we have easy access to healer-friendly layouts.You could have just said this, and that's all that would have been necessary.
The problem with UIs is that what works for one person might not work for another. There is no catch-all that works for everyone, and more than anything I don't want to play an MMO where I am fighting the UI more than I am fighting mobs.
I agree. I'm hoping the UI is quite customizable, though some MMOs limit customization to size, location, and opacity, and that's not adequate. Also, most players don't know how to edit XML so if customization requires that, then they're still stuck hoping that someone else just happens to make a moddified UI they like. So, if the UI requires XML editing or isn't sufficiently customizeable, I am hoping that, at least for the healer classes, the HP bar is prominent.
eunichron said:Forget presets and modifying combat systems to make it "easier" for healers- and I say that as someone that has mained a healer in every major (and a few minor) MMO since Vanilla WoW- all we really need is a UI that is customizable enough that any individual player can modify it, within reason, to suit their preference.What constitutes "within reason" in that sense is, of course, up to VR.
I'm not trying to make healing easier (and I actually like it better when it's more challenging), but I would like to actually see what the mobs we're fighting look like. Some games, at least in tough fights, taking your eyes off the team window can mean that someone dies. I just think that there's things we can do to make it so healers aren't staring at the UI the whole time.
I like the idea of all damage being applied over a couple seconds becaues it allows some visual 'breathing room'. It's also will make healing more fun since you could have senarios where characters are hit for damage that will be fatal and you race to prevent that. It's also more realistic (if you get stabbed, you will suffer inital damage but then bleed out). And it gives a better visual idea of the incoming damage that everyone is receiving.