PvE Enemy Healthbar Visibility

[Thorp]

The ability to see the health status of enemies is a great source of combat intelligence. Health bars can really help players focus on targets and reduces the need for improved cooperation. Visible health bars allows players to quickly drop into combat and pick a target with the health status information. Furthermore visible health bars will help players better choose to use or withhold spells/abilities on more worthy targets. Hiding enemy health bars on the other hand can increase the need for communication and promote the immersion of combat awareness. Hidden health bars will make combat potentially more difficult as players do not focus down weakened enemies and may waste powerful abilities on weak targets.

Would forcibly hiding PvE enemy health bars be something you would want the community to experience?

 

[Pandagnome]

I like the information the health bar gives but lets for a moment say we cannot see it but just the medics.
Would this help with better team play hmm

My guess is it would mean the medics can priority target enemies with for example a focus gun that could highlight the health of any that it points at maybe debuffs abit too. This would be good for priority targets depending whom they are.

Another thought what if

-recons could highlight stealthy type enemy health because of their high tech spectral scan
- Medics in general can highlight health of most enemies but not all
- Engineers can highlight base health using specialized drones for structural analysis
- Assaults can highlight boss health using specialized weapon when the projectile is fired and embedded in the boss the info is relayed back to them for the others to see.
- Tanks can see all shields/armor meter on units with its trusted aoe weapons/scan hammer
They will know who is that much more tougher

 

[Sturgeon General]

What if they use hidden health bars but implement real time damage. So If you have done an amount of damage to an enemy you can see that damage and eventually the signs of fatigue will start to show as its health gets low. This would one be visually appealing but also help with immersion and combat awareness like Thorp said in the OP. This would also be immensely helpful when fighting Kaiju as it would make it visually obvious which parts were already destroyed and which were currently being focused.

 

[Mahdi]

Nothing wrong with options that keep all sides happy. Personally I dont think many enemies should have them. Keep it to Cat2 or larger kaiju approach. Small fry should be just that, why have health bars on mobs that go squish!

 

[Myumyuh]

why have health bars on mobs that go squish!

Gotta agree with you.

 

[PIghead Elderberry]

I voted for toggle, until I noticed option 3.

I changed my vote to option 3.

I think it would be pretty neat if only special actions revealed such information to certain players.

In any case, regardless, there should always be the option for all players to turn them OFF.

So, all players can turn them OFF.

Certain skills or such can turn them ON.

Sounds good to me!

 

[Pandagnome]

I voted for toggle, until I noticed option 3.

I changed my vote to option 3.

I think it would be pretty neat if only special actions revealed such information to certain players.

In any case, regardless, there should always be the option for all players to turn them OFF.

So, all players can turn them OFF.

Certain skills or such can turn them ON.

Sounds good to me!

I like to think that different class could see health differently otherwise there is no variety
and it could be part of their passive that is unlocked or as Elderberry mentioned an ability.

 

[Omnires]

Personally I'm ok ether way. But it all comes down to the type of game and the feel of the game that can make something like health bar feel out of place. Like for example games like Monster Hunter and Dauntless could have health bar bars over all the monsters heads, but doing so would change the feel of the games. But they they still want to clue in players to how much damage they have done and how much health the monsters have left. So by adding in little details that change how the monster looks as you do damage to them (scars, cuts, broken parts) and changing how the A.I. acts and reacts to things (lumping when a lag is broken or badly damaged, or changing fighting tactics as they get more hurt) all helps to give you a hint to how much health the enemy has left. But sense you are never really sure of how much that is you always keep your guard up until the end of the battle. And it is the knowing but not really knowing that adds to the enjoyment of those games.

But if this game does go the health bar rout I would love it if different classes had different types of health bars they can see. For example.
Healers can see teammates and enemy vital signs. Something like a heart rate monitor and closest thing to a normal health bar you can get without really being one.
Tanks can see armor grades of teammates and enemies. And how strong or broken they are.
Damage dealers can see weak points on enemies and how damaged they are.

You get the idea. Different classes are going to focus on different things so would be looking for different things to tell the health of something.

 

[EvilKitten]

Healers...
Tanks...
Damage dealers...

Not to nitpick but We don't really have classes, so what criteria are you using for determining what is a healer or tank or damage dealer. Not trying to critisize, just wondering if there was more here or if you were auto defaulting to the old school trinity design.

What if a player has an equal number of offensive and defensive abilities. Grummz originally stated he did not want a lot of healing in Em-8er, not sure if that is still the case.

I also would prefer not to have health bars, as it pushes the game more towards numbers and DPS and how "much" a player is contributing as a simple math formula. I would prefer to avoid this personally. I fully support your first paragraph about having visual tells, particularly for the longer lasting mobs.

 

[Omnires]

Not to nitpick but We don't really have classes, so what criteria are you using for determining what is a healer or tank or damage dealer. Not trying to critisize, just wondering if there was more here or if you were auto defaulting to the old school trinity design.

What if a player has an equal number of offensive and defensive abilities. Grummz originally stated he did not want a lot of healing in Em-8er, not sure if that is still the case.

I also would prefer not to have health bars, as it pushes the game more towards numbers and DPS and how "much" a player is contributing as a simple math formula. I would prefer to avoid this personally. I fully support your first paragraph about having visual tells, particularly for the longer lasting mobs.

That is understandable. But funny thing about classless games is that a lot of people will still fall into one class or another. It may not be a traditional form the class but it is a variant that does the same job. But back to your question. I was thinking it could just be an effect that some auxiliary or optional gear in the game frames can put in extra slots.

For example, I want to play as a sniper. So I might have in my auxiliary gear slot something like a visor that gives me better long range sensors. And a side effect of this more powerful sensor array is that I'm also able to see smaller changes in physiologically and behavior to which the A.I. in my frame can read as the enemy is hurt or stressed and make a guess about the state of their health.

Another idea for auxiliary gear would be things like an array shield to help protect you from different kinds of radiation. But a side effect of that being anything that walks inside your shield bubble you can sense their density and the A.i. on your frame can make a guess about the defense level of the enemy by using a kind of echolocation based on the density changes it reads as the enemy does things like lose blood, armor, and other stuff.

Again not really "health" bars but things that can be used as one. It might be related to their health or not. But is related to their combat effectiveness.

 

[EvilKitten]

@Omnires Will this information be sent to other players in the area? a sort of S.I.N. network?

I am also still not clear, based on your response, exactly how the game would determine who gets to see what. The concept itself would be a very strong incentive to group up perhaps, if players with different information gathering abilities could team up for better visual info. But that will only work if each player is restricted to one type of info. As such you can't simply tie it to abilties as a player could simply pick a range of abilities that would provided them all of the info gathering types.

You could tie it to frames, but then you would only need 3 players to have all of the information at your fingertips. I feel like for a wargame scenario, a group of 3 is a good start, but more would be better.

One thought I just had is to tie some info gathering to abilities with timers/cooldowns, meaning no one player can keep it up and running all the time. This would create incentive having multiple people with similiar ability types in a group.

I would like to put forward my own idea's which appear to already overlap a fair bit with Omnirez':

Medical Abilities: Not referring to abilities that boost frame repair, but rather abilities that affect the player characters themselves. Any ability that requires a biological scan can be used on player(s) for an offensive ability, or on a target to track their heart rate for 1/3rd of the abilities cooldown. This ability takes the place of a health bar. Visually this will look like a cardio machine pulsing visibly over the targets head.

Targeting/Scanning Abilities: Offensive abilities that require scanning an enemy can also be used to discover weakpoints in a targets armor. Visually these weakpoints could appear as scope sights rotating over the location. This includes both permanent weakpoints as per NPC design, as well as temporary weakpoints created by player abilities or from MEK-A attacks.

EM Abilities: Ability types that utilize anything on the EM spectrum should also track brain activity in any enemy that gets hit. For any enemy hit, duration 1/2 of the abilities cooldown, anytime the enemy makes a "choice" a representation of the enemies nervous system will suddenly light up/sparkle, giving advance warning that a strategic type ability is about to be used.

Direct Damage abilities: Some abilities that deal DoT damage will also keep track of blood loss and skin damage. This would be a measure of the total DPS being applied to the NPC in question and might be useful for large encounters that are timed, or simply as a measure of how well you are doing.

Non-self Elemental resistance abilities: Some abilities that might augment a players elemental resistances can also be used to see if an NPC has any elemental weaknesses/resistances. Higher tier versions may also indicate the strength. This would be particularly useful for NPC's that can adapt to incoming fire, or ensuring a mob with strong resistances is properly debuffed.

I'm sure there are other things but that's the idea's I have at the moment.

 

[Omnires]

@Omnires Will this information be sent to other players in the area? a sort of S.I.N. network?

I am also still not clear, based on your response, exactly how the game would determine who gets to see what. The concept itself would be a very strong incentive to group up perhaps, if players with different information gathering abilities could team up for better visual info. But that will only work if each player is restricted to one type of info. As such you can't simply tie it to abilties as a player could simply pick a range of abilities that would provided them all of the info gathering types.

You could tie it to frames, but then you would only need 3 players to have all of the information at your fingertips. I feel like for a wargame scenario, a group of 3 is a good start, but more would be better.

One thought I just had is to tie some info gathering to abilities with timers/cooldowns, meaning no one player can keep it up and running all the time. This would create incentive having multiple people with similiar ability types in a group.

I would like to put forward my own idea's which appear to already overlap a fair bit with Omnirez':

Medical Abilities: Not referring to abilities that boost frame repair, but rather abilities that affect the player characters themselves. Any ability that requires a biological scan can be used on player(s) for an offensive ability, or on a target to track their heart rate for 1/3rd of the abilities cooldown. This ability takes the place of a health bar. Visually this will look like a cardio machine pulsing visibly over the targets head.

Targeting/Scanning Abilities: Offensive abilities that require scanning an enemy can also be used to discover weakpoints in a targets armor. Visually these weakpoints could appear as scope sights rotating over the location. This includes both permanent weakpoints as per NPC design, as well as temporary weakpoints created by player abilities or from MEK-A attacks.

EM Abilities: Ability types that utilize anything on the EM spectrum should also track brain activity in any enemy that gets hit. For any enemy hit, duration 1/2 of the abilities cooldown, anytime the enemy makes a "choice" a representation of the enemies nervous system will suddenly light up/sparkle, giving advance warning that a strategic type ability is about to be used.

Direct Damage abilities: Some abilities that deal DoT damage will also keep track of blood loss and skin damage. This would be a measure of the total DPS being applied to the NPC in question and might be useful for large encounters that are timed, or simply as a measure of how well you are doing.

Non-self Elemental resistance abilities: Some abilities that might augment a players elemental resistances can also be used to see if an NPC has any elemental weaknesses/resistances. Higher tier versions may also indicate the strength. This would be particularly useful for NPC's that can adapt to incoming fire, or ensuring a mob with strong resistances is properly debuffed.

I'm sure there are other things but that's the idea's I have at the moment.

In most of the mecha games I played, the auxiliary slot on the mecha is really just a general storage compartment built into the mecha itself (like a trunk on a car).

Most of the time unless they are carrying something for a mission or going on a camping trip most pilots keep that storage compartment empty to cut on the mass of the mecha for a number of different reasons (mostly for extra speed and/or to save on energy/fuel). But other times that is where they also keep special gear and/or weapons that they normally don't use often or don't want people to know that they have or otherwise wouldn't make sense to walk around with in your hands at all times. And it is this storage compartment that people put things like land mines, drowns, and flares. Or if they are on a retrieval mission where they put the things they gathered for safe keeping while they fight.

Some of the more specially turned and focused people will use equipment designed to fit into that storage compartment that can augment the abilities of the mecha. Like using the storage compartment to house an extra engine / reactor, or extra batteries / fuel tanks, or extra ammo, or special gear that can attach and detach from the mecha or weapons that would be to impractical to use all the time for any given number of reasons based on what it is.

Even how the Omniframes started out as something designed for exploration before being adopted as a tool of war. I would think there would be some size of general storage space the frames have for the pilots use to for carry food and stuff in, and/or to bring back treasures they found on uncharted worlds without the need to hold everything in their arms nor the need for an extra external storage device.

This why in my idea the abilities is not really linked to a skill but linked to optional gear you can put in that storage area at the cost of adding more mass to your frame. what that gear is can change how you see things. But going by how it works you might have also use up extra energy/fuel while it is in use. And this is where the idea of the passive version of some abilities and active versions of them can come into play. For example sonar can work just find passively but if you are willing to use some extra energy you can send out pings to get more details on your surrounds and clearer info on the enemy, the downside being that on top of the extra energy you are using to send out the pings you also give away your own location to everything in the area.

 

[PIghead Elderberry]

To make it more clear how I personally feel/play games:

A) Bars we don't need no stinking Bars

1) I personally hate with a deranged and furious passion having games reduce all combat to ticking away at flat colored bars on screen.

2) So, I never play any game with health bars turned on.

3) If I can turn them off, I turn them off.

B) Not everyone agrees with me

[completely unbiased here, of course]

1) I realize some folks actually like their screens full of all sorts of flat colored bars and flat colored bouncing markers and all that awful stuff covering up the wonderful virtual worlds the game creators make.

2) Let those folks have all that as much as they want, I say! Just don't MAKE me see any of it if I want to turn it ALL off.

C) Great new ideas here stated

1) The thing I never thought of before this discussion is to let ONLY certain frames or abilities reveal this information to those who opt-in to receive it.

2) That is a neat idea.

3) That allows (A) or (B) to be implemented by (A) types or (B) types so (C) = (A) | (B) which is mathematical/logical looking thing that means it absolutely must be great!

Just let me turn all that stuff off, no matter what is available for others who play like (B) not (A).

p.s. NUT DRIVERS

What drove me ENTIRELY NUTS and has left me permanently nuts, in fact, is when FF added more and more of the thick red outlines, huge bouncing markers over everything in sight... and did NOT give players like me any option to turn that junk off.

I loved wandering around in the gorgeous world, and the insanely gorgeous ebbing and flowing melding fringes.

All that got trashed when the screen filled up with flat colored blobs marking that the Chosen were my enemies! What? I didn't know I was supposed to shoot Chosen who were shooting at me. I really needed huge blob markers on top of every one of them! Gaaaaaaahhhhhh!