Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Publish 8.2 Feedback: Group Enhancements
Thunderheart wrote:
We added two enhancements to groups in this morning's hotfix:
Groups
- When in a group, a waypoint to the nearest group mission is displayed. The nearest mission is the mission closest to the most people in the group.
- Group member status bars will continue to report position information, even if the player is on the other side of the world. If the group member is on another planet, the planet name is displayed in the status bar.
Have you been able to take advantage of these items yet? What have been your experiences?
I don't know if those that reads this consider themselves roleplayers but to explain some advantages for this 1) existing roleplayers like to found their roleplay on some existing material so they don't have to invent it all for themselves, that can come from an ingame source or books from the real life. 2) in order to get some of the non-roleplaying gamers to start roleplaying you need to give them a world that they can imagine. Not just some yellow flat thingy with some flowers and trees and some non-descript critters. granted the graphics add to the feel... but to know that voritors prefer to hunt bols or thunes really is herbivores is impossible to see on computer screen without some text in it. I know theres two places that offers some description the holocron and the loading screens... but face it... neither of those is really accesible and present in the game situation. Just to clarify put the description in in the examine under the resists and don't limit it to rangers or scouts. Even though it is realistic that the other proffesions know squat about this it will be against the intentions of a more tangible world for the players.I'm so happy you have people spending thier time coding stupid little arrows while the Bounty Hunter missions are still broke and have been for weeks now. But hey, at least i know where the other people in my group have thier missions.
And for the record, no the arrows do not work correctly most of the time.
sorry to say that, but in now half a year of playing i really have to say that this "enhancements" are the worst thing SOE has ever done. Somehow after yesterday playing i felt really pissed with that, and as a software developer my own, i even cant think that u ever tested this. So here is a list of all things that happend to all of us in under 10 minutes of grouping with a group of 8 members:
- i was standing (group leader) 2m away from all, in the same room, all others saw me as (naboo) but i was not there all the day, nor did any of us go further than 1000m away from group
- someone in group got offline while in group, hes name was then double in the list, and replaced another mate in group. We still saw 2 different arrows, one on the LD character and one on the player that was still in but with wrong name in group
- People disapeared from list when a pet left group by storing, there was simply nothin shown except a gray arrow (even if the player that was missing then in the list stood beside me)
This is really the first time i think a bug makes it unplayable but this thing here does it. U cant do any tactical things when u even dont see the status right of the players, how shall a doc resurrect people when he cant see em in the group list as "corpse of", or how shall a medic / CM / doc heal players when he doesnt see their HAM?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CORRECT THIS ASAP!!!!!
no planet information visible. if the group member is out of range on the same planet as you the distance seems to update sometimes, but the direction arrows point in one direction and do not update.
I think that problem where ppl are saying that the group get out of range at 300m is as is to be.
But I didn't like a couple of things
1-When the "closest mission" wp is displayed, u just can't turn it off! I mean, I am doing solo missions and I don't wanna know wich is the closest mission for the group and there is no option to allow it to be or not to be displayed.
2-When u r off planet, the box where was the name of the player, do not show the name of the player, so I don't know who is im my group when I am off plant, and only the planet location is displayed instead the name and location
3-Same when u get to far from the members, them the name is not displayed and the range of this player relative to u is displayed
So here is my suggestion to tune up this great feauture
1-Make the "closest mission wp" become "turnable" ON and OFF, like the buff windown and every other window in the game.Not everyone wanna knows wich is the closest group mission.
2-When u r in a group and get out of range, keep showing the name of the members, only the relative distance is not good, I would advice to when this occur, the sytem show up 3 things, Name, Relative Distance and if the members is live or dead(those icons like stand and the skull with the two crossed bones)
3-When u r off planet, I would advice to display 3 things, Name, Planet where the group members is located and and if the members is live or dead(those icons like stand and the skull with the two crossed bones).
I think the dead or alive state is not so important, but the name/range, and name/planet is important.
I hope helped!
While in group the waypoint works, and if one wants to they can turn it off in the waypoint section. But I find that if you have missons then you group with another for a min to train or something like that , the waypoint shows closest like it should. But when you disband , Yes it goes away like it should , however that mission i find ends up being the one bugged and not pay anything
I've found the group enhancements extremely useful. Some problems have risen though as I surfed the discussion boards and through my player experience. I do agree that only the name of the planet shows in the group screen, but another is that the nearest waypoint seems to get stuck once the missions completed. It should update to the next mission but the wp remains and then its back to the old system of each player calling out mission distances.
Daryl Cresting, Templar Nytes, Shadowfire
Rifleman, Squad Leader, Master Ranger
*Yay! I get to milk something today! - Anonymous *
Sometimes when shuttling or just moving over server boundries, group members who are out of range get random names..
Example: was grouped with my driod (smithers) and 2 other people, droid was in town and 1 other person was soloing. I was (smithers) 2 times in the group box.
Example: Was grouping and we decided to call it a night and head back to our home world. Not all of us made the shuttles at the same time. I arrived on Tat from Dant but other group member did not, his name came up as "(naboo)" Kinda funny being grouped with a planet 
Elli Dullard TC