DevTracker

[Ronyn]

That sounds like a bit of hand-holding, though.

What I described is far from hand-holding. As usual implementation is key, that is what I intend to stress the most.
Games like devil may cry 1, 3 and 4 are notoriously punishing on their harder difficulty settings. Their brand of telegraphs are about readability. The gears of war series has relatively slow characters in cover based combat. Without an indicator that the one shot was a potential threat it could be used to insta-gib with minimal counterplay possible.
Very different types of games but in both cases it's about putting the conditions for victory or failure in the hands of the player as opposed to the system.

To apply that kind of thought process would require an Ember specific examination of where/when/how it would and would not fit.

 

[Ronyn]

So I'll get us started.
In some MMOs they have what is called a telegraph system, where enemies and maybe even players so a pattern of where their abilities or skills will hit in before they use them. Giving the players a cue to where to dodge attacks or to get in range of a support. This kind of game play mechanic can be easily explained in with science in a number of different ways. But simple and easy way to explain it is just to say each player has a personal analytical engine that takes in large amounts od data from its surroundings makes a predictive mode of that is most likely to happen next based on that data.

Think of how people try to predict the weather. The more data they have the more accuracy they can put into their predictive models of what is most likely to happen over the next few hours or days. It is the same idea but rather than trying to predict the weather you are trying to predict the next few actions a person or animal is likely to make.

Telegraphs are needed in a tab target MMO that tries to force players to...

This is an interesting part of the topic.
A constant, "red cone" based telegraph system in the vein of wildstar's would probably be out of place in a game like Ember.
But more subtle or organic Telegraph-esque effect have been used in many genres in many forms.
Some shooters have a beam shown in the direction of where a powerful shot will go. Like gears of war's One Shot weapon for example. Some melee action games have the enemies do a specific stance or flash before sending out an attack. Like most of the bosses in devil may cry series for example.

So there may be something worth examining in the idea here....as long as we look at the many different expressions it could take.

 

[Ronyn]

if you want my 2c i'd say "off with the head", one head is enough and i don't think anyone disagrees with it.

At least - remove that odd mecha head. It'll make the current omniframe look much better.

Personally I like the mecha head.

Which reminds me that it is very rare that there is a true consensus among the majority of a community when it comes to something visual like this. For every person who might not like one aspect of the omniframe there is another who does.
Game communities are full of different people with different preferences. To change something based on one groups feedback may very well be against the feedback from another group. I'm all for the creator of something listening to the community when possible but its not as though there will ever be a universally liked design.

 

[Grummz]

TY! Just trying to manage expectations and not let hype get out of proportion to the game.

Grummz, believe me, we are behind you 1000% and want this project to get off the ground as much as you do. We all have our individual opinions on just about everything but I for one will support the game's development whether I like a part of it or not.

 

[Grummz]

I don't know what constitutes a DLC and what constitutes a mini-expansion in your mind? In my current thinking, mini-expansions are a probably going to be a collection of new content and gameplay that are bundled together and sold. For some, that's DLC, for others thats an expansion. Game can't be free, servers to run, people to pay and network bandwidth is a bitch.