VFX Design and the Aesthetic of Large Battles

[chalk#4300]

Nothing kills the spectacle of a massive battle faster than a sea of nameplates, or excessive use of flashy VFX. Both of these are pretty unintrusive in most games, but when you're dealing with an MMO, it's better to be sparing with both your UI and visual effects.

There are a few approaches to deal with nameplate clutter, some can be combined with others, and ideally this would all be customizable:

1. Full names only show on party members and friends.
2. Distant nameplates collapse into dots. Very distant nameplates don't show at all.
3. Names remain collapsed until you point your cursor at a player.
4. All nameplates fade out/disappear when you ADS.
5. Options to scale nameplates. This could also help readability for some monitor setups.

For VFX, the solution is pretty simple; be conservative. A plasma beam should have glowing particles, but a punch should not. If you need to accentuate animations, there's plenty of options besides big eye-catching neon streaks. Blood, geometry smears, motion blur, air distortion, sparks, etc.

TL;DR - Make nameplates hideable and keep flashy particle effects to where they make sense. Otherwise huge battles tend to look ugly.

 

[Pandagnome]

What if you just don't have the name tag at all and if your viewing either 3rd person or 1st person at someone the name will appear on your screen for a short time near your reticle.

If you wanted to the A.I can add the names to a list these can be useful if you wanted to remember who it was and could team up with that pilot if they are not familiar. This could apply to even for npc encounter and be placed in either the Neutral/Enemy/Friendly list.

Anything not on the list is in the analyzing mode / studying until you have a better idea.

Also with names depending on what the max amount of letters/digits can be used if it's too long that could be an issue. What if they had a name option for a shorter version as an example

Original Name: MEggaSupraploop666ReaperALphakraken
Alternate name (when crowded) MegaS666ak

As for VFX i hope there are good setting options to change that especially with anything bright and colorblind mode so we can customize it for a much better player experience etc etc etc

 

[liandri]

Nothing but good ideas.

Yep, all good ideas here.

 

[Pandagnome]

Yep, all good ideas here.

More ideas!

What if you could have the name of the pilot not just the G-suit also on the mek e.g. some Suits have them on the uniform or item of use. This could be seen by an added layer, paints, lights, insignia, badge, etc


Also what about a number that could be translated by the Op-A.I sort of like a barcode.

The other thought is if the Pilot/Mek is too far can the name be seen, maybe that could depend on the op-A.I type and also any upgrades and even the class.

As an example if the pilot is a light frame recon with an op-A.I in investigation then that could boost the detection and zooming capability.

 

[Sy]

I remember the rave dance that was large player battles in Firefall.

The dots instead of nameplates is actually really interesting. I could totally see that replacing a health bar if done right. It could just change colors, or be a set color based on enemy type and then have a little border which unwinds clockwise as it's damaged.

There's also the notion of having health bars not show for enemies at full health. I'd also like an optional ability to turn off nameplates unless an enemy is damaged.

Maybe also things that have damaged me recently would get a nameplate.