On the matter of the health/mana, it's display and why I don't like it

[eRe4s3r]

Now excuse me for being overly blunt on this, but i am kinda sleepy and just remembered something that bugged me, and i always forgot to post about it so far...

So.. imagine you are a new player.. and you start the game.. and you roll a character.. and that character has 9000!!!!! HP --- sorry, meme got me anyway, 4000-6000 HP. And you think, weee, nothing is gonna hurt me with that many HP!

So now you walk out and see you have 6000 HP and you know how to increase HP to 12000 and so on.. except..
We are displaying this as % .... and worse, spells display damage in HP instead of context sensitive % and enemy take (even at LEVEL 1) about 25% of your HP

Am I the only one thinking that this is not only opaque but just plain weird and makes no sense?

Why aren't we displaying health in HP - divide all health, damages, regen and everything by thousand round the off-numbers, and keep it at that?

Whats the difference between 4000 HP and an enemy doing more than 900 damage and 4 HP and an enemy doing 1 HP damage? Except that one is unreadable after level 2 and the other is still perfectly readable at level 40)

If you answer "but then we can't do less than 1 HP damage" i answer.. yes you can.

Divide health into blocks

|####| <--- 1 block with 2/4 HP soak left  (obviously don't display it like that, rather as
##
##
Or something smaller and even more subtle...


Problem solved.

And it would allow for something even more awesome (the smart people might already realize) now we can apply resistances per block, make bosses with variable resistances depending on HP block stage, apply resistance individually, stack resistance and even apply different resistances for each "full" health block.

And better, advancement would have a tangible advantage, besides giving more health, some stuff could add more blocks, and even soak stages or extend regen ranges (at level 1 regen could be limited to that 1 block, and you need to find item or craft it to unlock regen of the 2nd block.. etc)

Now i don't claim supremacy on the idea, nor that its a good one, my main point is this, the current health system allows nearly no advanced stuff on enemies, like armor on health blocks, or soak where you have to damage 1 block entirely so that it doesn't regenerate again etc....

Am I just weird? Anybody else feel like this? I just think, there should be no gameplay that makes no sense, and this current health / damage system makes no sense to me.

Edit. Obviously this applies to the mana display and system equally.. ,p

[KDR_11k]

I think mana values actually got an extra zero since 0.500, e.g. Ball Lightning costs 140 mana instead of 14. The mana values can clearly have a zero taken off. Damage values probably at least two zeroes, seems that magic power stats are multiples of 1000 anyway. Also now health is in the 30000 range which really doesn't help with reading the values. AI War has similar issues with overly large numbers.

Oh and magic power vs spell power probably needs looking at, it's kinda silly that spells are ranged around 1-2k damage while my magic damage stat can hit 9000 easily, making all spells do the same amount of damage.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't have a lot to say about the current health/mana display (I also prefer smaller numbers, though I'd be a lot more likely to go for 4000 taking 900 damage -> 40 taking 9 than -> 4 taking 1).  On the issue of doing cool things with different sections of health bar: we're already accomplishing that with weakspots and extra parts on the bigger monsters; they can cause various things to happen when hit (or destroyed, for some extra parts) and have different resistances, etc.  It's just more a matter of "what angles can I hit this guy at and what pieces are still there?" than "what health block is he on?"

[Hyfrydle]

Not sure about everyone else but I tend to use the TAB autotarget in combat which negates the weakspot idea. For me targetting this way is much easier than moving the mouse all over the screen which I find very difficult and not as effective.

[keith.lamothe]

Not sure about everyone else but I tend to use the TAB autotarget in combat which negates the weakspot idea. For me targetting this way is much easier than moving the mouse all over the screen which I find very difficult and not as effective.

I use (edit: tab) targeting too and hit weakspots all the time.  It typically means jumping or positioning in order to headshot skelebots, etc, but it works.

[BobTheJanitor]

Speaking of bars, is there a reason the mana bar has gone from a clear visible display of lowering and filling up to one that is always blue but just changes shades as you use it? One of these is a lot more useful at a quick glance while dodging rhinos and lightning balls. (I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one )

Edit: Hey, my 1024th post. My first kilo-post! That's a much nerdier milestone than the 1000th post.

[x4000]

I don't really have a lot to say at this point, other than that I don't really agree on this one.  Scaling the numbers lower would cause all sorts of problems, and I'd just have to scale them back up again to get balance working -- OR make it so that everything is floating-point, which is a pain for (many) other reasons.

In terms of the visuals of how to display the health in the character menu, that is a bit of a disconnect from the main HUD, but it's a value you can still see in the detailed stats of your character and of all enemies.  I think it works just fine, to be honest.  I show the percentages in certain places for your character only because with the vitality stones that's the easiest way to quickly consume that info.  I happened to already put several health display improvements into the latest version of the game, so hopefully you'll like that at least a bit better.

In terms of the mana bar, Bob that's just a bug in that version -- GUI sorting thing, but it was already fixed.  Congrats on the kilo-post, by the way!

[BobTheJanitor]

In terms of the mana bar, Bob that's just a bug in that version -- GUI sorting thing, but it was already fixed.  Congrats on the kilo-post, by the way!

That's what I get for not updating every night! I'll be sure to check things before I complain about them next time.  And thanks. Arbitrary milestones are the best milestones.

[Penumbra]

Only slightly related to the display of Mana, but I like how it is shown in the "game screen" along with the action. However, I find when I need to know how much mana I have, my attention is on the mouse cursor, and I am watching my character using my peripheral vision. What about an option to have the mana bar follow the cursor instead?

[x4000]

That's a great one for mantis.

[Bluddy]

Not sure about everyone else but I tend to use the TAB autotarget in combat which negates the weakspot idea. For me targetting this way is much easier than moving the mouse all over the screen which I find very difficult and not as effective.

I use (edit: tab) targeting too and hit weakspots all the time.  It typically means jumping or positioning in order to headshot skelebots, etc, but it works.

I have a big problem with allowing this alternate method of playing the game. You're not going to be able to optimize both methods, and one will always be easier (and therefore 'cheaper') than the other.

[x4000]

Not sure about everyone else but I tend to use the TAB autotarget in combat which negates the weakspot idea. For me targetting this way is much easier than moving the mouse all over the screen which I find very difficult and not as effective.

I use (edit: tab) targeting too and hit weakspots all the time.  It typically means jumping or positioning in order to headshot skelebots, etc, but it works.

I have a big problem with allowing this alternate method of playing the game. You're not going to be able to optimize both methods, and one will always be easier (and therefore 'cheaper') than the other.

For someone like Kieth, having the tab-targeting is kind of the only way to play.  He doesn't use the mouse for games like this, and doesn't want to, so it's not really an option to not support.  The same is true of gamepads, for some players.  The mouse will always be better and faster than either mode, in skilled hands with the mouse at least, though.  So someone playing with a gamepad or keyboard-only is probably going to need to use a lower difficulty level.

The way it's balanced (and will stay balanced) is that to tab-target something you get a direct line to the center of mass of the target.  That is rarely the best angle of fire, but by repositioning yourself you can make it a little more optimal.  This replaces skill with the mouse aiming with skill of positioning your own character.  Not quite the same thing, and it makes it wicked hard to hit some weakspots (which again I wouldn't want to add any compensations to get around, as that would get into the cheapness you are worried about), but in general it provides a comfortable way to play for someone that would otherwise not feel comfortable at all with the controls.

TLDR: The main method of playing the game is always keyboard + mouse.  There are other options, but equally skilled players in the various other methods will always be inferior to a skilled player with the mouse.  For players that are okay with those drawbacks, there are those other ways of playing that are more fun for them (or more usable for whatever other reasons).  But we won't let it get into the cheesy realm.

[keith.lamothe]

Yes, tab-targeting will always be less effective if you use it to the absolute exclusion of other control modes.  I use it for most stuff, particularly when I need to be moving a lot at the same time or to throw out a wide variety of stuff in a short time (and thus don't want to mess around with changing which one is bound to my mouse cursor) but will switch to mouse targeting while trying to headshot skelebots during a battlefield mission or am otherwise going for precision.

[eRe4s3r]

I don't really have a lot to say at this point, other than that I don't really agree on this one.  Scaling the numbers lower would cause all sorts of problems, and I'd just have to scale them back up again to get balance working -- OR make it so that everything is floating-point, which is a pain for (many) other reasons.

In terms of the visuals of how to display the health in the character menu, that is a bit of a disconnect from the main HUD, but it's a value you can still see in the detailed stats of your character and of all enemies.  I think it works just fine, to be honest.  I show the percentages in certain places for your character only because with the vitality stones that's the easiest way to quickly consume that info.  I happened to already put several health display improvements into the latest version of the game, so hopefully you'll like that at least a bit better.

In terms of the mana bar, Bob that's just a bug in that version -- GUI sorting thing, but it was already fixed.  Congrats on the kilo-post, by the way!

Well I don't know about technical solutions but i can tell you that this issue is real, and because words vs images.. images always win.. i present you, one of my feared mockups

This issue is not just my taste, take a look at the image and what HUD info-lack problems I see (and its more than 1 ,p)

Notice i greyed out everything that has absolutely NO relevance to my reading of the HUD - these parts of the numbers are literally irrelevant

If you want, I can make another mockup where I showcase how I think it'd be less "opaque" as well, usually i am not one to just mindlessly bash one thing in a game without reason, but its hard to put this into words. For me the HUD is simply not telling me important things.

There is also stuff like that whenever there is no visual cues to help my math, i would call this bad... so i don't mind seeing mana like it is now (you get extra minus points if its in % next patch..) the thing that annoys me with that, is that when i hover over a spell the part of the mana bar thats used up by 1 shot should highlight or glow.

Maybe its not yet time for HUD polish posts.. but well, thats my 2ct's

Edit: By the way, whatever the apparent tone of this post may sound like, in fact its just an observation, not even a true criticism. So remember, this is what *I* think, not necessarily whats "best"

[BobTheJanitor]

when i hover over a spell the part of the mana bar thats used up by 1 shot should highlight or glow.

Oh yeah, that would be handy. Or something similar for when you're using mana or losing hp, do the sort of highlight and disappear thing when you use mana or lose HP. IE if you took a big hit and lost half your health bar, then first that half would highlight red, and then it would shrink or fade away to show the normal bar with half of it gone. That does help in estimating at a glance if you can tank a few hits from this monster, or if you should run away now now now. Something similar for mana usage would be handy as well.