Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Icons over heads
I think a single icon to indicate wounds over a certain percentage (25%? 30%?) would be appropriate. It wouldn't be too complicated, yet really useful to healers. I know from experience how hard it is to see if there is a black bar when in a darker room. Perhaps it could be turned off and on within the miscellaneous tab in the options menu--it's not too hard to get to.
I don't think this would have an impact on PvP because you automatically see the ham bar of the enemy target, including the black wound bars. I don't see wounds as having a huge impact on PvP (from my experience so far).
An icon over the group leader's target would be very beneficial, in my opinion. I know how difficult or confusing it can be describing which NPC or creature to target first. That should be an ability for everyone. Maybe more info when the leader is a squad leader?
Playoff and iamNcommand I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but here goes:
Allow the PLAYER to set this toggled status on/off
Perhaps allow this toggle to be set by SLs as part of their group command system too (that's a neat idea).
Upside - player choice. If you want to advertise you're injured, that's your decision. If you don't, live with the consequences, or live with the benefits - depending on the situation you find yourself in.
Downside - this featured toggle might be hidden in the CTRL-O controls which means it might get lost in the clutter.This seems like a small trade-off if you embrace my self-selecting toggle idea.
If you think of it as another kind of title - you can choose to have it up or down, at will, then I think you get where I'm coming from.
That way you have a pull of 10 critters, there will be an icon floating above the pack so you can click that instead of tabbing or trying to get lucky clicking into the mess.
This is more of an interface request but possibly done by the same team, can we get the group display shrunk. It is ridiculously large when in a big group. Maybe do something similar to DAoC where you can either see the whole thing or just a mini-display. Oh, and while I'm on it, give us the ability to make the windows more opaque. If these things are going to clutter the screen then at least allow us to see through it.It can be done in DAoC so it should be possible here.
Holocron wrote:
Today one of the programmers decided to add a floating icon over people's heads who were badly wounded (he was playing a medic, and found it useful). This led to a discussion on how a feature like this might work--what filters you'd want, who should be able to see the icons, how you turn them on and off.
This could be good but I agree with what a lot of others are saying:
1) Make it visible to your faction only. Too easy to pick the heavily wounded player otherwise.
2) Link it with medic skill. No pointcluttering the screen ofthose who can't do anything about it.
3) Make it for badly wounded only, say greater than 33%. No point in clutteringup the screen space if you only have one or two points of wounds.
Another suggestion was the ability for a group leader to set an icon over a target (I believe that the squad leaders have already asked for something like this as an ability). Ability for anyone? For SL's only?
Weren't SLs supposed to get a skill which switched everyone's target to one particular mob? If this is implemented then SLs wouldn't need a big arrow. Also, if you fix assist then again you wouldn't need a big arrow. Let us target a player and then /assist to assist them.
Setting an icon over a target I feel should be an SL ability, but there does have to be a matching command for the party members to take that target. Currently /assist works to start shooting at someone's target, but you don't always want to start shooting. 
SL's are already able to kind of force-fire on such a designated target, right? Volley fire? Now having one command for 'take the SL's designated target' and one for 'assist but don't shoot' would be nice. Of course, if /assist didn't shoot, that'd be over and done with there. Then, regular group leaders can still be /assisted, but SL's get to tag a target, since forcing the group to change targets should be another ability (which afaik is already there).
As for 'badly wounded', well what decides that? As a thought, if any of someone's HAM bars dropped to half or below 300 (since that's the minimum it can be, right?), maybe then they could get some kind of 'injured' icon, like a white cross. Similarly with wounds, maybe someone with 25% or more wounds in a HAM bar should get a slightly more serious-looking red-cross icon. Of course, then icons for status effects over heads would be useful too (e.g., bleeding, stunned, dizzy, knocked down, on fire).
All that information is kinda already available when you target someone, so it would just be a matter of opting to see it or not, and what information (health/wounds, statuses) you see, since maybe the medics would love to have at-a-glance information but the rest of the team that can't do anything about it just turn it off. For that matter, if it's something that can be decided on the client end, why not make the '50% or below 300' an option? maybe I want to know as soon as anyone is injured, or maybe with the spices and stim-buff packs I don't care until they drop to 30% which might be under 1000 in a buffed HAM stat.
While on the subject of filtering what icons to see over people's heads, could we also have the option to turn off the (i) of conversational NPC's? 
-Demra Secrivez, who is at this very moment looking for that SL trainer. =)
Good idea.. leave the marking the Target to Squad Leaders.. they need some viable/useful stuff in their class badly. All I ask is that this 'option' be allowed (the wounded by how much thing) to be togglable from graphics menu .. as some of us may not like it. .Dunno b'out you .. my screen is cluttered and confusing enough as is .. 
Another idea to throw into the pot.. Why not instead of an 'icon' .. make a self-toggleable 'shout' of help .. or a grunt or something selectable. .I think the players shouting 'Medic!' .. or Ow .. this one hurts.. like the NPC humanoids sometimes do would add more realistim into the game without cluttering or bogging down the interface with another trivial icon?
Just my 2 credits
In your massive pursuit to try to make all this new stuff that won't work right for another few months, you keep ignoring the things that need to be fixed. Look, we all want new and coolie stuff, I won't deny that. But if you'd stop trying to make new stuff for, like, a month, and just fix the stuff that needs fixing, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it a lot more.
Devs, please, take, like, a couple weeks off of trying to make the game constantly new and fix what is wrong. The approach you're taking right now is taking you down the path of AC2, and trust me, you don't want to go there. They kept trying to add new stuff to make people forget about the stuff that they never managed to fix (and still haven't). We want this game to last, but if you keep sandbagging us with new stuff, all you're doing is piling the problems for later. With the European release date approaching, wouldn't be nice to give them the idea that we're not trying to hock some half-baked crap to them?
Ach'leigh Seinnahi
Princess of the Derik'hur Highlands
Bria
I don't know how easy it would be for these ideas of mine to be worked in, but they operate along the same lines as what you mentioned. First off, let the medical heal symbols be visable only in med centers or groups, and i must agree to make them toggleable. Second SL should be the only ones to place group wayponts/icons (they have a rough enough time as is, might as well throw them a cookie once). But now we come to the bigger part...I reasigned my right mouse button to function the same as the defult tab button, and as a Bounty Hunter I find it extreemly useful to just click and smite...It would be nice if medics could cycle through the nearist injured players using some key or key combonation and then just click and heal(could be group only or med center only). Anyway, glad you guys are checking up on our feedback.
If you are looking for good muds (i remember someone talking about using mudding ideas to make the game better) check out Lostsouls.org (link from there to the game via telnet, would suggest gmud or zmud if u plan on getting into it) it has amazing content.