Development Cycle Archive

Holo, here's an idea that is related. How about icons that appear over heads of enemies when in range/eligible for special attacks? This would be particularly valuable in the event of an Area of Effect attack where some kind of highlighting or shading would let you know who would be eligible for the special.

I play a Doctor, haveing an icon for those that are badly wounded is usefull. In a group we already have the status bar from other members of our group that lets me know who is hurt. So to prevent this from haveing a redudant effect I would suggest the feature be available outside a group. Also I would suggest the Squad leaders have a /grouptarget command that can change the target of the group members. I wanted to suggest the leaders of a group have this ability but that would lessen the effectiveness of having a squad leader.

Doesn't really make sense to make it a SL only ability, since its only usefull for doctors and medics...

I really like the idea, but I ask myself where you do you want to place these icons? And what if there are several icons? I think you lack of space...

What I'd like for (inofficial) language based servers like Gorath is, to place icons for non-germans or for english-speaking peoples. As a role-player I talk mostly german and I hate the question before most conversation "German? English?" !

I like the idea, even colored icons for the wounded like red or yellow based upon the amount of damage. However, the following should occur:

1) Don't place icons over everyone who has damage, set a minimum amount like 10% damage of Health/Action before an icon appears. There's more than enough stuff above a persons head and faction rank will just add more.

2) Opposing faction players can never see the icons, this would be just one more reason against PvP.

3) only someone with novice medic skills needs to see the icons, since non-medic types can't heal. Also, I assume you're going to include pets.

4) Have the ability to turn off the icons if a player desires.

5) Group leaders and squad leaders should get this ability. If eveyone in a group can "group Target" that doesn't mean anything.

6) Squad leaders should be able to get an additional bonus with this feature; like an additonal % to hit the target if at least one or more people in the group attack their "targeted" enemy. Whatever you come with just make sure that a squad leader gets a bonus or allows the grouped members a bonus with this ability.

7) Don't limit the ability to squad leaders only. Everytime we group now the issue of what to shoot first comes up, so if at a minimun the group leader can target, or anyone who has say ranged support 4 would be good. Might even make this another part of the ranged support skill, it's kinda worthless now.

I'd say let a Group leader set an Icon over a MOB, I think that would be better

the SL idea is a great one... medic idea is ok, but if you make it only for people you're grouped with, what good is that? you can already see their hams in the group list.

Adding a "targeted" icon to the HAM bar makes the most sense to me. And it wouldn't need to be SL only, considering it's the equivalent of someone pointing to a mob - anyone should have that ability.As far as someone being wounded, the HAM bars reveal enough- if you're in a med ctr, you're most likely woundedanyway, why be redundant about it.Enough already with the goofy floating icons, the one that exists now looks ridiculous enough.

Available to anyone and SL's can have more advanced ones

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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.

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?

What do you think about all these notions?

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What filters would I like to see? How about the ability to turn off particle effects and such like we could in EQ. Fighting with commandos and very large groups lags people to death because of the explosions and such. Also since we talking about stealing code from EQ for SWG.. lets get the combat spam under control with filters for other hits, creature hits, and such. I like seeing what i am doing and what my pet is doing, but not what everyone else is doing.

Icons over wounded heads will make it a lot easier to kill the wounded enemy during PvP.

The same can be said for enemy deathblows and the <-- DRAG --> keyword. When I see, <-- DRAG -->, I know exactly where to run to for a quick deathblow.

i love the idea.

2 things I would do, make is customizable so i can turn it on or off.

and

set it so that the only way one could see is3 condition,
1. Same Faction, or not at war with guild
2. Must not have been in Combat for 5 mins (doctor)
3. No TEF flag.

A very good idea. As a squad leader, I would love to see additional options available to us like this, but most specifically, the ability for the squad leader to put an icon over the head of WHATEVER we are targeting. As for a "looking for healing" target, that shouldn't necessarilly be an SL only thing, but rather I think it should work like "LFG" where you are "CFM" (calling for "Medic!") at any point you wish. Anyone should be able to put the Medic! flag over their own head, so they can discreetly call for attention to themselves whenever they like (even while incapacitated/dead perhaps?).

Easy way to avoid an enemy PC from exploiting this to pick off the injured: Anyone with a TEF against you cannot see this flag--they couldn't heal you, if they wanted to anyway!!