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Unimportant A17 feature: The HP Bar!


fragtzack

Unimportant A17 feature: The HP Bar!  

338 members have voted

  1. 1. Unimportant A17 feature: The HP Bar!

    • It should be completely removed from the code. It represents bad game design.
      25
    • It should stay and be hard coded in. It represents superior game design.
      9
    • It should be commented out but remain in code so those who want it can try it.
      28
    • It should stay but be able to be toggled in the options menu.
      119
    • It should stay but take a different form
      27
    • It should stay but only appear after an enemy is damaged
      50
    • It should be removed for all but bosses and regens
      24
    • It should stay AND the game should become turn-based. Go action points!
      9
    • It and everything else should go. Invisible HUD FTW
      8
    • It should stay but only show if you buy it as a perk.
      39


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I'd love to see it work like Vermintide. So no HP bar except for bosses, because I do love that mechanic in that game (and you're killing loads of mobs at once, so it's a good benchmark to use vs 7DTD horde night).

 

Having said that, the only request I have is... if it DOES make it into the game, do not hard code it!

 

It's bloody annoying when I keep finding things I want to change and I can't because it's sodding hard coded. (looking at you, tooltip text)

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I'd love to see it work like Vermintide. So no HP bar except for bosses, because I do love that mechanic in that game (and you're killing loads of mobs at once, so it's a good benchmark to use vs 7DTD horde night).

 

Having said that, the only request I have is... if it DOES make it into the game, do not hard code it!

 

It's bloody annoying when I keep finding things I want to change and I can't because it's sodding hard coded. (looking at you, tooltip text)

 

I'm confused because localization.txt contains pretty much every inventory and perk tooltip in the game... What's hard-coded?

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I'm confused because localization.txt contains pretty much every inventory and perk tooltip in the game... What's hard-coded?

 

The actual position.

 

You know the text that pops up right above your hot bar? You can't change the position of it.

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I feel pretty strongly about this so I'm going to go down the list and talk about every possible choice on this poll:

 

It should be completely removed from the code. It represents bad game design.

 

I think that "it's bad game design" is a bit harsh, but I do agree that it should be removed from the code entirely. I don't think we need HP bars at all for zombies and I do share many of the concerns of people who are against HP bars but also some other concerns which I will touch on by responding to the other poll options.

 

It should stay and be hard coded in. It represents superior game design.

 

If it's going to stay, I think being hard-coded is your best bet, at least until you get enough backlash to take it back out, anyway.

 

It should be commented out but remain in code so those who want it can try it.

 

If by this you mean that it becomes a mod to have HP bars, then I think this is a good option. That way people can play vanilla servers if they don't want HP bars, or they can pick a server with HP bars on. My only concern about this option is if it implies that anyone who follows a little modding tutorial can enable HP bars on any server they play on, which IMO would feel more like an exploit than an option.

 

It should stay but be able to be toggled in the options menu.

 

I think if it were an "option" - it should be a server option not a client option. If a client can choose whether or not to enable HP bars, then everyone is going to feel pressured to turn them on in a competitive or even cooperative environment. As a PvP player it would behoove me to use as many tools to my advantage as possible, including UI advantages. In other words, I would feel pigeon-holed into enabling HP bars. I could see the same holding true for cooperative play. Take for instance two friends fighting a boss, one with HP bars and one without. The one who sees the HP bars is making informed tactical decisions, and may perceive his teammate as making sub-par tactical decisions and call him out for it, pressuring him into also enabling HP bars. Alternatively, one person may want to pressure his or her peers into all playing without HP bars when some of the others may want to use them. I would strongly prefer an "always on" or "always off" situation on any given server.

 

It should stay but take a different form

 

If it does stay it should definitely take a different form for many reasons. I think this poll response leads into the next few, so I'll talk about my reasons there:

 

It should stay but only appear after an enemy is damaged

 

I generally agree, though this solution is not without its own problems. Is it ANY zombie that takes damage? How far away can you see the HP bars? Can you see them through walls? Through windows? What if someone else is fighting a zombie in a building, do I just get a free beeline to their relative location? During horde night, does every zombie that steps on my field of spikes automatically go into HP-bar mode? What would it look like having 30 HP bars all stacked up under me? Could I still successfully shoot at the zombies through the mess of UI elements? Or should you only activate the HP bar if you yourself actually hit the zombie with a direct attack? How long do the HP bars stay activated after you disengage a zombie? Forever? By the way, the dismemberment and knocking down of zombies as well as the sounds of critical hits (eg. sledgehammer to the head) are already good damage indicators, we don't need HP bars.

 

It should be removed for all but bosses and regens

 

I don't think any of the bosses you have now are significant enough to warrant having HP bars while the regular zombies do not. Cops, spiders, wights, and screamers are barely above average and having HP bars for them would feel like overkill. Besides, you already put so much effort in making these "special" zombies so visually distinct that we already know they are a bigger threat than normal. It's fine the way it is (in A16). Maybe if you put behemoths in then we could talk HP bars. I'm thinking about the tank in L4D (though the survivors in L4D didn't get HP bars even for the tanks). As for the regenerating zombies, we can see the glowing green field so it should be obvious to the player when it's taking 5x as long to kill them that they aren't outpacing the regen. Let the unperceptive players learn the hard way, that's what makes it a good survival game. The mystery of it. Getting screwed and learning some difficult lessons.

 

It should stay AND the game should become turn-based. Go action points!

 

Fallout: 7DTD. © Bethesda 2019

 

It and everything else should go. Invisible HUD FTW

 

I'm not totally against an invisible HUD but honestly I really like having numerical values for my HP. It gives you a certain precision in health management gameplay that invisible HUD games are incapable of. I don't think making the HUD invisible will result in better gameplay.

 

It should stay but only show if you buy it as a perk.

 

I actually like this more than some of the alternatives. Having an in-character buff to allow you to better perceive your enemies is so much better than the social / competitive pressure to enable or disable HP bars if it was just an option in the menu. People who want them have to invest in their character, and I like that idea a lot.

 

Conclusion: Keep the HP bars out of the game, but if you do put them in then hopefully take some of my concerns into consideration. Thank you!

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I like the idea of the HP Bar of being a perk.

 

Maybe it could be multi tiered so at the first level you just have a rough idea of the health of enemy (Healthy, Hurt, Badly Hurt & Near Death) but at the second level you get a percentage of their health. Then lastly at the third level you get to see the actual numbers of their health.

And i guess it could also have a ingame advantage of maybe increasing your critical damage multiplier.

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I think that "it's bad game design" is a bit harsh, but I do agree that it should be removed from the code entirely. I don't think we need HP bars at all for zombies and I do share many of the concerns of people who are against HP bars but also some other concerns which I will touch on by responding to the other poll options.

 

I don't like the HP bars but this is the only one I'm completely against. Modding to add is harder than modding to remove so they shouldn't be completely removed especially if they truly are a development tool for balancing. There is sure to be more balancing to be had in A18...

 

 

If it's going to stay, I think being hard-coded is your best bet, at least until you get enough backlash to take it back out, anyway.

 

I agree with this and all changes of similar scope. As participants in early access we should be forced to try out changes and really form an opinion in order to give good feedback. Too often things get modded back to previous status immediately. So if they want them tested force it upon us at least through A17 and then push them to xml for A18 so people can remove them if they well and truly hate them.

 

If by this you mean that it becomes a mod to have HP bars, then I think this is a good option. That way people can play vanilla servers if they don't want HP bars, or they can pick a server with HP bars on. My only concern about this option is if it implies that anyone who follows a little modding tutorial can enable HP bars on any server they play on, which IMO would feel more like an exploit than an option.

 

This would be the best option if TFP really does only want them for testing purposes. By commenting them out they can easily enable them again during A18 development. It would also be the easiest "modding" to delete the comment tags and have them be enabled for your game if you want to try them out. In fact, if TFP really does want them but would rather ease into it they could do this and see if they become popular.

 

I think if it were an "option" - it should be a server option not a client option. If a client can choose whether or not to enable HP bars, then everyone is going to feel pressured to turn them on in a competitive or even cooperative environment. As a PvP player it would behoove me to use as many tools to my advantage as possible, including UI advantages. In other words, I would feel pigeon-holed into enabling HP bars. I could see the same holding true for cooperative play. Take for instance two friends fighting a boss, one with HP bars and one without. The one who sees the HP bars is making informed tactical decisions, and may perceive his teammate as making sub-par tactical decisions and call him out for it, pressuring him into also enabling HP bars. Alternatively, one person may want to pressure his or her peers into all playing without HP bars when some of the others may want to use them. I would strongly prefer an "always on" or "always off" situation on any given server.

 

Gamma adjustment is already the pressure that people feel and gamma adjustment will allow you to see enemies long before the bar shows up. You have to have your crosshairs on the enemy and be in range for the bar to appear. Move your crosshairs off of them and the bar disappears. With gamma at 200% you will see them long before the bars act as an advantage.

 

 

I generally agree, though this solution is not without its own problems. Is it ANY zombie that takes damage? How far away can you see the HP bars? Can you see them through walls? Through windows? What if someone else is fighting a zombie in a building, do I just get a free beeline to their relative location? During horde night, does every zombie that steps on my field of spikes automatically go into HP-bar mode? What would it look like having 30 HP bars all stacked up under me? Could I still successfully shoot at the zombies through the mess of UI elements? Or should you only activate the HP bar if you yourself actually hit the zombie with a direct attack? How long do the HP bars stay activated after you disengage a zombie? Forever? By the way, the dismemberment and knocking down of zombies as well as the sounds of critical hits (eg. sledgehammer to the head) are already good damage indicators, we don't need HP bars.

 

HP bars have a pretty close range and you must have the crosshairs right on the enemy. They don't show through walls, the bar only shows for the person targeting the enemy and not for others nearby who are not targeting the enemy as well, only one bar ever shows at a time. If you move your crosshairs off of one zombie onto another right behind then the bar changes for the new zombie. You don't see two bars. The HP bar always disappears immediately when you aren't actively aiming your crosshairs directly on the zombie and you look away.

 

 

I don't think any of the bosses you have now are significant enough to warrant having HP bars while the regular zombies do not. Cops, spiders, wights, and screamers are barely above average and having HP bars for them would feel like overkill. Besides, you already put so much effort in making these "special" zombies so visually distinct that we already know they are a bigger threat than normal. It's fine the way it is (in A16). Maybe if you put behemoths in then we could talk HP bars. I'm thinking about the tank in L4D (though the survivors in L4D didn't get HP bars even for the tanks). As for the regenerating zombies, we can see the glowing green field so it should be obvious to the player when it's taking 5x as long to kill them that they aren't outpacing the regen. Let the unperceptive players learn the hard way, that's what makes it a good survival game. The mystery of it. Getting screwed and learning some difficult lessons.

 

There are no zombies in the game now that are considered bosses in the sense that A17 will implement them. Regen zombies are closest but still not considered bosses. Nobody has seen a boss zombie yet.

 

 

I'm not totally against an invisible HUD but honestly I really like having numerical values for my HP. It gives you a certain precision in health management gameplay that invisible HUD games are incapable of. I don't think making the HUD invisible will result in better gameplay.

 

Do you have sphereii's mod launcher installed? If so trying out the invisible HUD is simple and if you would be willing to play through Day 3 in order to get used to blindly selecting things from your hotbar (easier than you think) and acclimate yourself to environmental clues I think you will see that invisible HUD definitely changes gameplay--whether for the better or not will vary person to person. I say it does. :)

 

If you don't have sphereii's mod launcher installed then shame on you. What the heck do you think one-year long development cycles are for?

 

I actually like this more than some of the alternatives. Having an in-character buff to allow you to better perceive your enemies is so much better than the social / competitive pressure to enable or disable HP bars if it was just an option in the menu. People who want them have to invest in their character, and I like that idea a lot.

 

This is my favorite option as well and I like the ideas others have come up with to make the information associated with the bar a progression from general information to specific information.

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Keep it commented in the code or make it toggle on/off.

I am definitely not fond of this feature but since the devs already coded it, it would be a waste of effort to remove it completely.

Just keep it in there, but don't enforce it into the game.

Personally, I think it lacks realism, because, while you can tell how hungry you are, therefore % of hunger is realistic, you shouldn't be able to see how much "life force" is left in a zombie after he eats a bullet.

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@Roland thank you for the detailed response. As always, it's hard to give feedback on a feature we haven't actually tried yet. I think forcing it for A17E and then polling on it (whether formally or informally) to make a decision for A17 stable would be the best bet here.

 

After reading your post my opinion has slightly shifted. I didn't realize it was close-range and also only when you have your cursor over the zombie. In that sense, it's not "whack-a-mole" like some users have suggested, because there's no point to scanning every enemy and making decisions based on their HP in that manner, it would take more time to do that than to just whack them all in the head with a sledgehammer, and hit them while they're down if they don't get decapitated from the first hit. That's how I've always played. An HP bar wouldn't really add to the gameplay in any way from a theoretical point of view, but I won't knock it until I try it. I think if it IS a perk it should be a toggle. Like both an option AND a perk, so if I purchase the perk I can also turn it on or off. I don't want to regret purchasing the perk forever. Otherwise just an option. My concern with my earlier suggestion of having it be a server mod is - which state is considered a "mod?" - with or without the HP bars? That's more significant of a decision than you might think, because having your server go to the modded list over a single option is a big deal for small server owners who are looking to grow their numbers. The vanilla servers always get the most traffic due to being the first page you land on in the menu. Lastly, the implementation of the HP bars as you've explained them Roland is not as susceptible to my concerns about cooperative and competitive pressure. It doesn't seem like it gives as big of an advantage or disadvantage as I was imagining. I was thinking every zombie within 50m had a giant red bar over them like some Korean MMORPG lmao.

 

I'm prepared to give HP bars a whirl in A17. I think you made them sound much better than I was imagining Roland.

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I voted for the HP bar as a perk, so you can buy it if you really want it.

 

I don't get the appeal or the need though. Once you've played the game for a while, you learn what's necessary to take out which zeds. Not really worth cluttering up the game to find out what you will likely know fairly soon anyway.

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The only real "that's too bad" aspect of the bars is that the devs finally have implemented ragdoll physics on zombies that are stunned. So the way it has been in A16 and previous is that you know exactly when the zombie is really dead because it ragdolls when it's really dead and it looks different than when it is just stunned and knocked back. So you know exactly when it is down for the count and when it isn't in A16.

 

So in A17 without the bar it won't be obvious when a zombie is dead dead or just knocked down because they fall down in exactly the same manner but with the bar you will still always know....and that's too bad. The not knowing adds a bit of spice to combat with the undead.

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If the HP bar becomes stock vanilla, the difference between the gamma and HP bar comparison is this. If you don't succumb to the gamma peer pressure, you may be at a disadvantage, but you don't see zombies you can't detect with your own two eyes.

 

In the HP bar scenario, you'd be able to see it by being close enough and accidentally mousing over, especially on a sleeper with a high volume threshold. Whether you wanted to or not. Thereby eliminating any surprise or "Oh ♥♥♥♥" moments.

 

I understand using the HP bar and other numerical indicators as an invaluable tool for testing and balancing, but for everyday gameplay I just feel like more is less, but I'm certainly biased by preferring immersive, organic survival gameplay.

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Just my 2 cents on the matter:

 

HP bars as an idea are neat... they give you visual feedback, since hitting isnt always hitting in this game... sometimes HS dont register... stundamage doesnt go through and so on and so forth.

BUT make it optional and no serverside option.

I personally will not play on any server that has HP bars (if serverside) which will probably exclude 50%+ servers.

 

Why? Simple. There are only really 2 ways of playing this game. (well some sub categories... but u know what i mean.

 

1. realism/survival player.

They are the ones not going under ground/on stilz because it is exploitative. They are the ones enjoying combat as a sort of challenge.

They are the ones not logging off at hordenight...

 

2. casual/fun players.

nothing against casual playing. they simply wanna have fun, murder some zombies and want to have as little hurdles to overcome as possible.

they will use the pathing ai to their advantage.

 

 

1. will not enjoy hp bars. they will ruin the surprise of a zombie still living and will find these hp bars distracting. this is not a shooter, its a survival game. we dont wanna see the enemies exact health. we want to fire into a horde and see half of them still standing and think "oh ♥♥♥♥" while the other half ragdolls only to stand up again.

 

2. will enjoy hp bars. it makes the game more predictable. you can calculate your bullets. you can always assess the risk and never have to fear losing stuff and backtrack.

 

 

and since i am player 1... I do not want to see hp bars forced upon us... just make them optional per player and im 100% fine with that... so now both playertypes have something they like.

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The only real "that's too bad" aspect of the bars is that the devs finally have implemented ragdoll physics on zombies that are stunned. So the way it has been in A16 and previous is that you know exactly when the zombie is really dead because it ragdolls when it's really dead and it looks different than when it is just stunned and knocked back. So you know exactly when it is down for the count and when it isn't in A16.

 

So in A17 without the bar it won't be obvious when a zombie is dead dead or just knocked down because they fall down in exactly the same manner but with the bar you will still always know....and that's too bad. The not knowing adds a bit of spice to combat with the undead.

 

I wish you hadn't told me this :(

 

HP bars would really spoil the fun with that.

 

 

Overall, I think this feature is somewhat innocuous, although I'd rather not have it for immersion purposes. I think not knowing the zombies' exact health should be the default. It's not necessarily knowledge that the player character would have, nor is it critical to communicate to the player (like their own health or stamina).

 

Somebody did mention having a perk for this, that's not a bad idea.

 

Otherwise, I think it should be something commented out, or disabled as a default, but be allowed to be turned on.

 

 

Pink mist IS very satisfying...

 

Pink?

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If the HP bar becomes stock vanilla, the difference between the gamma and HP bar comparison is this. If you don't succumb to the gamma peer pressure, you may be at a disadvantage, but you don't see zombies you can't detect with your own two eyes.

 

In the HP bar scenario, you'd be able to see it by being close enough and accidentally mousing over, especially on a sleeper with a high volume threshold. Whether you wanted to or not. Thereby eliminating any surprise or "Oh ♥♥♥♥" moments.

 

I understand using the HP bar and other numerical indicators as an invaluable tool for testing and balancing, but for everyday gameplay I just feel like more is less, but I'm certainly biased by preferring immersive, organic survival gameplay.

 

Speaking of the gamma peer pressure, I haven't felt that it mattered since the A16 NVG were improved from A15 and earlier. Like the NVG are so good idk why you'd use anything else. I don't like my gamma high because it makes daytime unbearable, and switching every day cycle is too much trouble.

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The only real "that's too bad" aspect of the bars is that the devs finally have implemented ragdoll physics on zombies that are stunned. So the way it has been in A16 and previous is that you know exactly when the zombie is really dead because it ragdolls when it's really dead and it looks different than when it is just stunned and knocked back. So you know exactly when it is down for the count and when it isn't in A16.

 

So in A17 without the bar it won't be obvious when a zombie is dead dead or just knocked down because they fall down in exactly the same manner but with the bar you will still always know....and that's too bad. The not knowing adds a bit of spice to combat with the undead.

 

I agree, what a pity.

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The only time I want it on is with Bosses and maybe Regens. I'm assuming boses can have random super powers to keep things interesting.

 

How many times will you need to fight a type of zombie before you are 90% certain how many Good hits it will take to destroy them?

 

For the veteran players I'm thinking about two times. Done.

 

OR just have "tells" in the boss fights:

-If they are wearing a car for armor you know its going to be a LONG fight.

-If their eyes are glowing green, they can regen.

-If they're swinging a flaming sword and are breathng fire, then... you dead! :)

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