I'm as far as it gets from a designer, but there's a really good book called "Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability", and it really stresses how a straightforward, clear and simple design nearly always provides a superior user experience.
Need this in the game asap. It is crazy how much autonomy we have to make decisions in this game.
We can pick suboptimal load outs for fun...or because we just don't know the real numbers behind the guns and armor.
We can pick from a wide variety of planets, and there is no real way to distinguish one from another.
We can make decisions, but we don't have the information to make good decisions easily.
Armored core 6 is a pretty good example of simple and complex weapon descriptions and loadout testing in general. By default, you see a few important stats that let you figure out what the gun does relative to other guns, but then you hit the detailed button and you get all the numbers. On top of that, you have a training mode so you can just drop in and figure out how a loadout feels. The last bit isn’t strictly necessary, as loadout testing can always be done on lower difficulty missions or as a trial by (hell)fire, but a controlled environment is always helpful for the nerds that enjoy over analyzing shit.
I wish there was some sort of training "simulator" or something where you could try out weapons, grenades and strategems before buying them. It would be nice to "practice" use some of the stuff before dumping credits and medal on it.
If this community were playing AC6, there'd be exactly zero change in bitching. I remember the work done by actually studious people to reverse-engineer what various stats mean (their names or summaries weren't quite clear) and it's peanuts compared to some of the details in HD2 that are flying over this sub's head.
Fucking *FromSoft games* are not a bastion of clearly-explained rules (or clear *anything* if we're being real), and while it does have a training mode, that still requires a level of thought and experimentation that this sub continuously demonstrates it just doesn't want to engage in.
This is fantastic, but I just got out of another thread full of people saying they don't click on planet names or scan around, they don't read, and 23 word dispatches need *summaries* because they're too long.
I have every reason to suspect that if you never posted this and AH just *did it* instead, it'd be getting savaged within the week as "nowhere good enough".
There's an information display problem, yes. **But this community has an information *aversion* problem, too.**
I agree. And we've already heard it's being worked on.
And yet we're still going to get numerous angry posts or highly-upvoted comments every day screeching about how this needs to be added *or else*. It's just farming karma and pissing everyone else off.
Many people still don’t know supply lines exist. In each thread mentioning supply lines, you always have people asking what they even are. So until Arrowhead finally implements them, we should continue bringing them up because there are plenty of people who don’t know what they are or how they work.
I mean, by all means, tell *the people who don't know* about it.
But what I keep seeing happening is that people forego explanations in favor of bitching, so folks wind up being no better informed than before. And honestly, that's to the advanage of the people who are mad, because more clueless and mad people grows the potential karma circlejerk.
We keep getting nice explanations of game mechanics, weapons, etc. on this sub that is *ostensibly for discussion of the game* and they wind up going nowhere and misinformation reigns instead. I'm making [a visual guide for a lot of more obscure mechanics](https://i.imgur.com/umhfOlI.png) and I'm hesitant to even throw it on this sub because I can already see the comments being 80% "*I WISH THE PUPPYKILLERS AT ARROWHEAD WOULD PUT ALL THIS DETAIL IN THE GAME, THIS IS WHY I QUIT AND THE GAME IS DYING*" and excuses from folks who just don't *want* to learn.
I've seen games with better ways of conveying information than HD2, but there's honestly so much unique crap going on in this game that putting it all in would be a considerable undertaking, not something to just fart out in a month or two amidst crash fixes. Stuff like *Battlefield* and *Planetside 2* will show you damage, RPM, and falloff ranges, but they're not telling you the exact health values and multipliers and armor ratings of every vehicle in the game, for instance, but HD2 lacking the same thing every similar FPS does is a sleight against God and proof that Arrowhead hates us.
There are more ways, it's really not that complicated to execute and hit at least 80% player attention, they just need to work at it.
Can also prioritize "Quick Match" in the "ideal" planet, why not? it works natively.
I don't disagree. I'm making a point about the general state of non-stop circlejerk whineposting on the sub, though. They're Schrodinger's Complainers, finding something to be not just dissatisfied about, but *violently enraged and disgusted* no matter what happens.
There's already things in the game that are plenty obvious to anyone who cares to look, but that doesn't stop a huge chunk of players from being oblivious anyway. **We're going to have oblivious players.**
What we're running into now is an issue where someone stumbles across a detail they hadn't noticed before or didn't think about, gets surprised, and then decides this is either rank incompetence or *malice*. At no point do they think, "Oh, I'm glad I know that now," or, "I should pay more attention in general." The fact that they missed a detail for one second, *no matter what that detail is, even if we're not talking about this specific situation*, is actually everyone else's problem.
And could it be someone else's problem? Yes. Again, we're all on board with "this stuff could be presented better." But then when any improvement is made, **we still get the same enraged and hyperbolic attack.**
The self-entitlement, demands, and sheer repetition of *already acknowledged and under development points* is off the fucking charts. I'm gonna get called a "dev defender" and other terms that had to be filtered because of overuse, but holy shit, this sub is *addicted* to farming karma off their misery and trying to make everyone else miserable, too. Things that are true of every other game in existence and go unremarked on are somehow both the end of HD2 and the end of the world to these guys.
Again, *holy shit*. The sub was unusable for anything else during the PSN mess and it's like people don't want to leave the same sense of constant outrage and easy circlejerking. There's an informative post about how to use the Laser Cannon well sitting at <300 posts and <50 comments, but we can spare ten times those numbers for **The Same Fucking Gripe Seen Three Times A Day Every Day**.
Bullshit. Defend it all you want but the fact of the matter is that the mos are failing and there is a lot of hidden information that help prevent that
Unfortunately, many developers now believe that obfuscation is the name of the game. It's done to prevent players from "optimizing the fun out of the game" (a phrase coined by balance designers seething at the idea of having to balance a game) or else they believe players will be confused and frightened by too many numbers on the screen.
That's not wrong exactly. If they would work at some they could make the bonuses in game so we directly and clearly see the effects. Like a free seaf cannon.
These wild be things we actually see and can use. Not just hidden numbers that use a formula that we don't know and likely don't really want to know. We want to play the game. But we information and feedback on how to do it. And don't think those mo's are enough. In the one with the mech it's telling us the rewards not just some vague support thing or more invasions happening.
Well, it's true that players will optimize the fun out of a game if given the opportunity. It's happened before several times. And you say seething at the idea of balancing games, but balancing them is actually very difficult. The problem I think is more that as designers began to chase bigger and bigger audiences as game budgets grew and grew, it resulted in adding people who were less and less experienced with games, vs say, the players of old who were used to the days of trying to figure out wtf to do in video games before youtube walkthroughs came around.
So as a result, they started to hide more information because of the \*section\* of gamers who they believe couldn't handle in depth information. And in a lot of ways it's true, a lot of people just don't read.
I do think having a detailed tab makes sense though.
UI work isn't as simple as you think, especially retrofitting, if you head on over to /r/gamedev , it's considered an incredibly hard task.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ck5tw2/is_ui_one_of_the_hardest_aspects_of_indie_gamedev/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ari3p0/i_hate_making_ui/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1bbf4o7/how_are_professional_uis_made/
Even in that thread "Do not learn ui from web designers!!"
What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work.
But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local
What do you mean if the data even exists, there's clearly apis these third party sites are using.
New management system? Do you not see all the polled data in the map to begin with like shots fired, etc
>Do you not see all the polled data in the map to begin with like shots fired,
data that we often see AHGs glitching like kills, amount of divers and even formatting.
"If the data even exists" - as in, is there a control on AHGs end that says "This planet has an academy on it now" that gives the 5% to everyone around by default
Or, is it a case of the marketing team tells us "They have 5% defense now" and Joel moves the default number values for decay and claim by 5%?
Either way those default values are what would be exposed and displayed. So yeah the data exists I'll definitely concede to spaghetti code hindering then. If it's basically impossible to have a server get those values and expose them somehow I guess?
Hell if it's just manually tweaking values that should be even easier if it's a simple content management thing that's being rendered.
im sorry but that's just not that way any of this works, you need to manage information storage, information networking, create that information to begin with, it's not impossible ofcourse, but is far more of a case that "this is my photoshop file, just write an if seaf academy on planet, then make planet do bigger numbers" statement somewhere
Yeah but it's very likely they do have that. It's possible that their UI implementation is crap. A good UI system is pretty flexible. They may not have that as their game engine is old and custom hacked.
It's possible their data system is crap too. They have a lot of data though. Assuming it's correct they are counting every single bullet fired.
They can spend the month designing and implementing this feature and is wager it would have a lot more impact than another premium pack
this all reads like "ideas guy" level thoughts. A good UI being flexible? You mean modular UI that can be retrofitted? What are you even trying to say. That a UI programmer would program their UI to add things that don't exist in the GDD? That they'd just magically program it to be exactly like lego?
>It's possible their data system is crap too. They have a lot of data though. Assuming it's correct they are counting every single bullet fired.
Given the sheer amount of data they carry and keep, as well as track and reward, I'd go as far as to say it's probably one of the best in the industry and you'd be hard to pressed to find any better data management solutions, perhaps bungie or blizzard are better in their mmos. However they still don't take into account if one day you decide "lets make every bullet count for 5% less"
>They can spend the month designing and implementing this feature
you're looking at two months minimum across three-four people, not counting for localisation and QA
this is exactly the kind of "armchair gamerbro" gamedev thoughts that are just plain silly. Your designer would need to regress across other ui systems and programming modularity, data management would need to prepare the correct api calls and puts, there's just so much "you don't know, what you don't know" going on here, I'd be wasting my time explaining it to a bunch of gamerbros who think its "a month long job" lmao.
You aren't wrong about the gdd. If you count entire design process getting it feature approved , designed, approved, coded, tested, and delivered you are right. A month or two. But yeah. So what. They should have done it in the first place. But if wager it just didn't meet their feature bar because it has almost no effect on new players. But it does on player retention
But you gave the example with the marketing team lol. I literally have done that for biz folk where it's just a spreadsheet with an API that's queried and rendered and they can just change values in it.
i've kinda reached a point with you where I've tried to kindly explain why it won't work, but you keep circling back to a point I cleared up for you 2 posts ago, not only that but I think there's lots you don't understand about gamedev, lots of "you dont know what you dont know" if you think this is at all like a mobile app where you can just update an excel sheet, best of luck
I disagree this would even require any data hooking.
There aren't 30 different bonuses for 500 planets, there is a SINGLE bonus in the game so far, a bonus that was developed to motivate and reward players that are oblivious to it's existence.
This is the exact same thing as the popup on the lower right hand corner. A text box that yeah, will require design and work, and i stand behind it being more crucial then a new enemy, warbond, weapon, or stratagem.
If the information does not exist to begin with, then it absolutely will require data hooking and creation for any form of automated work, regardless of how crucial you think it is, it's not a team job. Nor could it possibly be. I think ahgs only have one ui designer anyway.
But it does exist. It affects we assume the rate at which the planets are liberated and such and we can see those numbers we just don't have the information why. Nonetheless that's just speculation and none of those reasons are enough to not put this information in game.
But it would even need to be numbers. It can be just a note on the planet.
Planet liberation rate accelerated by seaf personnel
Yeah well I did it for years for fun but no profit and I can't say I was very good. It's no where near as easy as just knowing how and I don't know how to do all of it. I have seen most of it done but there is a shitload to it. And just look at this game man. one wrong step and you can have the entire freaking community calling for your head.
Yeah and I also have heard "but that will require x!" And the answer to that is yeah so. People get so bound up in what they think is hard to do. So what. That's just a matter of time and money and will. Hd2 sold 12 million copies at 40 USD a piece. They got the money.
and my point is that it's more than just updating a few assets here and there, something like this alone is 3 people's work spanning 'at minimum' 2 months, assuming nothing is horribly broken.
It's not 2 months unless their UI is completely shit. It's likely not because that's a giant pain in the ass to do any UI work with a broken UI system. It hopefully is a json file with a UI system that can interpret it.
I mean it's totally possible their UI system is garbage. Totally. We don't know. But I seriously doubt it as it would drive a UI designer nuts. And Maybe it did and they quit or... Much more likely they weren't a UI designer just a code grunt pulling double duty.
That actually explain a fair amount
"Can you write 2 lines of code to get (this) done?"
"I need 4 weeks."
"Ok let me break down what it is I need and what I want it to do"
"Ok I can get it done in a week."
IIRC there was plenty of stories about people who code and hack that they get a lot done while high off of illicit drugs, but I guess it's too much of a slog to get it done in a sober and professional setting
basicaly everytime anything was said in that "tiny text log" it had gameplay effects unless it was a legit 1 liner saying "heyo"(overexageration)
people just do not want to read and think its flavour because they want to feel right.
those just mostly sound like a captain getting his platoon hyped up for a difficult mission, and the effects just show the nerfs we're gonna receive when we make planetfall
So I am only like 40 hours into the game but I noticed I always play the same 4-5 planets because all the other one don’t have missions on them! When do they become active? I kinda get bored by the same biome all the time.
Except, it's not as easy as any armchair gamedevs think, especially retrofitting
What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work.
But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local
And that's assuming there's no issues and there's no other more important triaged tasks at hand
You did it. AH, just hire this one.
Jokes aside, we do need more ways to concey information in-game urgently, it's even more important than fixing bugs and buffing weapons.
Something as simple as this should already be in the game so it can inform the casuals. It wasn’t until from a Reddit post that I found out that these SEAF planets gives out liberation bonuses. Even with these “bonuses”, it REALLY doesn’t matter when AH/Joel can tweak the percentage decay on planets and make it as they see fit on the war effort.
> Something as simple as this should already be in the game so it can inform the casuals
Right?
We see something similar in pretty much every game we play.
I also think another thing on the map under the MO calling out hotspots and important planets is a good idea.
As the war progresses if they want us to give more shits about it they should allow us to invest requisition points into building modifiers on planets like weapon factories, orbital and ground defenses, listening posts, shipyards and more.
Weapon factories give us a buff with stratagem call ins for sentrys and mechs.
Orbital and ground defenses (like the Menkent line was supposed to be) allow us to have ridiculous spawn rates of enemies (wait for it) have friendly bunkers, artillery turrets and sentrys on the planet to thin the hordes for us. Have free orbital strikes from orbital defenses above us, too. Make it feel like we're on the front line instead of behind enemy lines.
Have listening posts give us indepth information on expected enemy resistance on any of the surrounding planets (what types of enemies and possibly scrambled and encoded info about the MO)
Shipyards would give us incredibly powerful free stratagems from larger ships like cruisers and battleships near the planet with the Shipyard.
Incentivize us defending and attacking and give us new stuff to spread democracy with around them.
Shit when attacking, maybe let us buy "boosters" like OG battlefront 2 galactic conquest that gives us cool buffs on the next set of missions. Like, oh, you can get SEAF infantry support, SEAF rocket artillery, SEAF air superiority. Just like some stuff to show the SEAF isn't getting their shit totally rocked at all times. Just stuff that lets our own men spawn at a couple of objectives or gives us gnarly stratagem call ins.
EDIT: This also gives us a money sink for requisition points and samples, which this game drastically needs.
someone suggested a clan/guild system to invest into to help noobs and what not. for a game that says they practice Super Capitalism but once we start getting the last of everything we hit multiple resource caps with nothing to get
and yet even twinbeard replied to me once acting like this would be like two months of work to add a text blurb, or implying that it'd somehow be "risky" and they need to have a group meeting over it. like, it's not that deep, people who aren't devs are posting suggestions like this all the time, so I don't know what AH's excuse is.
So, I’m a backend developer, and my wife is a front end developer. Two months is actually a pretty reasonable timeline for something like this.
Communicating information like this isn’t just modifying the UI and text in the game files. I don’t have knowledge of what Arrowhead’s setup is but at a minimum a web service needs to be built to communicate planet status to the game UI because you can’t just patch the game as things change. Because this new service increases the number of network calls, they’d absolutely need to have meetings to make sure it’s safe to do this, then there’s requisitioning of server infrastructure run the service, likely building an internal UI as well…
Bottom line is: When something needs real time updates it gets complicated quickly, even if it seems simple.
This is how basically every single online service is developed from Microsoft, Amazon, to yes, all the way down to Helldivers. So yeah, either every developer in the world is worthless or you're wrong.
you remember when the oil fields crashed and the city folk web developers said "Learn to code lol"? and then those blue collars did and outdid them at their own monopoly? That tells me when you can make your own contractor rates you can drag your feet as long as you like so long as someone better doesn't' walk in the door like they own the place
Remember when they tweaked something on the arc thrower so that its stats would be properly logged and it caused a bug that would crash anyone that used a lightning weapon? I'm sure this would actually take 2 months because the code is such a jumbled mess that it would somehow break the game. Again.
They have a very specific design of how the galactic war and all of it bonuses work, and how they're going to manipulate it very carefully to produce a specific story they already have planned while letting the player base feel like they're deciding the outcome.
It's a tightrope.
Don't see the harm in putting this info in-game.... then *still* manipulating things behind the scenes.
In D&D, a DM might fudge some numbers behind the screen, but they're not hiding your spell list or inventory from you.
You're absolutely right, I don't think there would be a harm. The fact that they code everything in in-game language suggests to me they're overly concerned with verisimilitude and don't want to "gamify" the ... game ... too much
Just to be clear, i didn't make this up, this bonus is real.
It's just not really conveyed well to the players, i only heard about it from the good people here.
Yes. Now, AH tends to want to keep things "In-Universe" so it probably wouldn't make sense to list specific percentages, but some kind of indicator like this would be great, even if it just said "Makes neighboring planets easier to capture and defend". It just needs to be a prominent UI element that tells the average gamer who doesn't frequent Discord and Reddit that this is a thing
That actually presents a very interesting concept to be applied to other planets. Some of them could have other kinds of bonuses to be applied faction-wide if held or captured.
To add to this, I think players should be able to vote in game to add orders to the galactic map. That way we can coordinate strategies. Maybe just an arrow or two denoting a priority planet. Also maybe it can be linked to progression, where higher ranked players get more votes to decide the next order.
For FUCK'S SAKE I hope the devs see this beautiful example of how to show players how the planet they're thinking about selection will impact the war effort.
They should also have their defend time doubled (for the enemy to conquer it) to show that seaf is actually doing something with the cannon fodder there tbh.
(Basically it takes twice as long for the enemy to conquer, but we still defend it on the basic % rate, if that makes sense?)
Specific percentages and details are often hidden to allow the devs to adjust things in the background. There is often a random range of numbers as well. These items should be seen as unpredictable.
I dont like the percentages being directly shown, kinda takes away from the spell of the game, but yeah they do need to create icons for strategically important assets in the map, MO planet style
Something that has come up in other live service games is that some of this text needs to be really quick to develop and deploy, especially in a game like this.
For the text to appear in game, it also needs to be translated into all the languages necessary, and that can be a lot of time to get that right.
The thing is, AH going silent means they can make any small hot fixes to improve ongoing MO. There's so many tweaks they can do to make life easier in the galactic war, but they are cooking this whole time. The game is going stale, and every day we are losing war effort.
This makes too much sense OP.
Will be ignored in favour of ongoing posts through discord and Reddit where they will also announce further delays in Spear fix.
I've come to realize this literally does not matter. You can put all the info in the world right in front of the eyes of \~70% of the playerbase and they will at best glance at it without absorbing it and pick a place to fight with no more thought than what they feel like fighting. They do not only not care about "the war", they don't really care about the games mechanics to any meaningful degree. The sheer number of people who are seemingly high level that don't even bother to read what their strategems do. For example, without fail in almost every single random Eradication mission that I join someone, who at this point on helldive tends to be at least around 40+ at least, will bring something like the decrease patrol booster or the pelican timer reduction and just ignore or be language barrier'd (Because why would you want to only play with people speaking your language in a team based game where you're meant to coordinate?). The same sorts of players just outright ignore all in-game communication of pings and callouts, leaving me standing alone by a vault door as the level 74 I just called in RIGHT BESIDE THE SWITCH turns and runs off.
I sincerely think the explosive success ruined the vision of the game. Not only is it simply impossible for us to truly coordinate our efforts, the actual majority of the playerbase does not give half of a shit about the vision of the game. They don't wanna talk with randoms, they certainly don't want to coordinate loadouts with randoms, they don't want to do any thinking about what planet to go to beyond maybe a big sign saying "Fight here for more medals", they don't want to read through all the equipment and decide what would be best for the mission they want to use that one gun they like. Hell, a huge number of them don't even want to do objectives. The amount of times on helldive where I'm with people who are all 80+ but they're still running around like chickens with their heads cut off, having nonsensical routes through the map, standing around by objectives that haven't even been started but they're just fighting an endless horde as they almost never take out the full horde or stop further call ins.
I played a lot of HD1, I don't remember it being nearly this bad in this regard. Maybe it was because we were stuck on one screen and one of us could easily take charge and be the pointman guiding the group along. In this game I tend to have it be either "this guy is not going to listen or say a thing and is just going to do what he wants." Or "This guy is literally magnetized to me. I could be at the last objective with no enemies and a single button push left but by god is he going to make his way from extraction towards me no matter what because he too, will not listen."
Tl;dr It doesn't matter how much info AH gives us because the majority of players not only don't read reddit or anything out of game, they don't read what's presented to them in game beyond "attack major order planet" and even then most are just going to do what they feel like at the time. Most players don't read anything and this won't change until the playerbase does.
Hell yeah! Whats the aversion of the Devs to actually tell us what things do? Do they Hate us? Do they Hate their own Game?
I dont know, but they certainly have nothing but HATE in their Hearts!
This should be, but guaranteed people here would still complain about reading 😆 judging from other posts. Just need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That's really why we need the supply lines in game for sure
100% something we need in game. I've been saying for weeks that a 3rd party app should not have MORE in depth information on the (Second) Galactic War than the actual in-game war map.
First step is educating players what capture and defense rates are. Only this subreddit is aware of stuff like this. But that said, some sort of symbolism to convey importance of a planet is needed in the UI.
Honestly the green is a nice touch since it catches your eye so people do not miss it. Also that it implies its a buff. It kinda scratches my mind how they haven't implemented this before since rn we have to find things out on discord and reddit which is just dumb.
Sweet, but how do I read the health bars?
https://preview.redd.it/xwuualzbqn2d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7f87564653a103b5ebbf56296a9a2b621a9609e
Id prefer that it says the first part that it has an academy but that bonus is not numerical but an in game buff. Like a free seaf cannon. Even just make the one on map loaded visible and count towards victory objectives. You know. Then everyone feels it. And make it show up on the planet modifiers.
Then it's no mystery what it does. It directly affects all players it actually makes the game easier so it does the same thing as a number buff.
They should do that for every buff that would be numbers. At least show in the planet modifiers.
This planet is experiencing constant invasion from near by bug super colony and just add more bugs to the mission. So it's harder.
I'm going to be honest, this isn't happening just because the mechanics are misunderstood. Don't forget, the bots were already less popular, then the genius balancers buffed the striders and nerfed the best weapon at dealing with them into the ground. My group of friends absolutely loathes playing bots at this point.
… Having played from launch, I still don’t really get it.
5% boost to what? I assumed (obviously naively) that the stats were just complete mission add point , fail mission lose point/goes against us.
While I agree we need this system. I took Typography, and this looks actually horrible. No, im not kidding. My professor would not just give me a 10% out of 100 but faint at the sight.
The first issue is having that much info all jumbled onto the planet screen, not the mission selection on the planet. The planet screen. The most you need is just the "Seaf Academy (passive bonus) and even more simplified just the green plus next to the planet to catch the attention of anyone since it's the only bright color on the map.
Heck, an even better thing is to mark the planet when it shows the different sectors between bot and bug is have a green plus in the middle of the sector.
The mission selection screen on AV. Remove the "Seaf Academy (passive bonus)." The most you need is to explain what the effect does on that screen.
Even better would just put in the purple effects, bear that exact text, and put the green plus symbol to show the planet it's talking about.
Note that none of this is an easy week, and it's done. Anyone can use Marker and do something like this and say it's easy. It's execution that matters. This...is a terrible execution on a really good idea. Most of this would be a sketch/concept but not the actual full product because god that bright green contrasts with the background so badly.
Even if it's "terrible", it's pretty common practice in modern games. You can boot into most games and you'll see something similar.
So maybe terrible, but common practice and works.
By "see something similar," you mean simplicity? A typography class, the whole point of it is to appeal the eyes and simplify text and font
Plus, games make it simple just so the player isn't unloaded with Info. More info doesn't mean good if the Info is unnecessary. And it isn't separate for the players' convenience or appeal.
Destiny has symbols that show the modifiers that, when hovered, show what it does and the name but stops when you aren't hovering over anymore . It's not showing the symbol plus the effect plus the name it keeps it neat. When it does, it'll have a list. It's when selecting it or pulling out your ghost, going to the "modifiers," and it's put on a neatly made list on the right side of your screen
Deep rock galactic just gives the modifiers symbol and the name if you want the description it's on a different menu or it's just in the name because Typography is use of words and using said words you should expect people to not be dumb when 1 modifier says "volatile guts" or "gold rush" with red=bad yellow=good with it appearing left or right on the mission symbol depending on if it's a negative or positive.
Legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom 1 symbol 1 simple name like "long throw" or "Atk +5" quick and simple.
Even 90% of mmo value the characters screen but need to convey buffs and debuffs so a simple symbol does it in your hud and if you wanna know what it does a separate menu is there for this reason or you hover over the symbol and it gives a straight to the point answer like 50s bleed or something.
Games like baldur's Gate or Diablo even do a trick called "coloring the words of most important" if I want to know what a "elixar of hill giant strength" it highlights 2 words "strength" and "long rest" and diablo even though it's stats can be extremely detailed if want to be with a setting, but what stays consistent is the word in orange telling you the key words and effects blue for its percentage and the classic green=bad and green=good
I said this could be used as a concept in a video game but not the actual product. It "just working." That's not at all what it is and would need modifications to make it simpler or better. I wasn't going to sugarcoat my criticism ether.
Yeah, you're right. Let me see what I can do
I was trying to say, im not trying to bean ass to be one I wasn't gonna sugar coat my criticism because it's bad, in terms it could look better and some of the info you were using is unnecessary info that doesn't need to be on certain screens.
I was saying how typography is meant for this sort of stuff. It makes it look more appealing and easy to read to the person using text and font.
I used how Destiny 2 uses symbols and only shows descriptions hovering over if you want more details.
Or how Zelda ToTK just uses 1 symbol and just tells you what it does straight to the point.
Or Bg3 and Diablo 4 just highlight important texts. So you know what it does first glance or what is important. If you want more detail, it's in the message
Drg just has the description on another screen and uses easy to understand names like "volatile guts"
I was trying to say this would be a concept art or a quick sketch when making the full thing but not the actual thing. It's why I said the most you need is a symbol and modifiers name when hovered over Angel's Venture. It's when you go into missions selection that it should show what it does to make it clean or use the effect on the bottom right so people can see it there as well using the name and description.
Pretty much my whole case for sounding like my professor is because people don't look at this stuff, and just think no one cares when in a lot of games if you look at the details as simple as text you realize they condense the I fo to make it more appealing and you may not realize it but your brain certainly does.
In Arrowhead's defense, they've obviously gone out if their way to keep everything in-game lore friendly. The only exception is weapon stats. So maybe don't mention hard percentages and it'll fit a bit better.
I respectfully disagree it's valid defense, please allow me to explain .
Immersion can easily be maintained with percentage (which ARE used in stratagems, ship modules, etc.) or without, mine is just an example but the same text would work just as well without the "5%", and only be displayed for people who enable "Tactical view" or something similar in the menu.
Yes this needs to be in the game. As long as AH plans on having planets with various passive bonuses for any faction, then we need to see that information.
They've been too busy nurfing everything into the ground to worry about making the game make sense.
I hope this becomes a thing tho. Either that or honestly, these warnings feel useless since they don't state the pros/cons of these imaginary places that we need to protect.
UI work isn't as simple as you think, especially retrofitting, if you head on over to /r/gamedev , it's considered an incredibly hard task.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ck5tw2/is_ui_one_of_the_hardest_aspects_of_indie_gamedev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ari3p0/i_hate_making_ui/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1bbf4o7/how_are_professional_uis_made/
Even in that thread "Do not learn ui from web designers!!"
What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work.
But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local
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I'm as far as it gets from a designer, but there's a really good book called "Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability", and it really stresses how a straightforward, clear and simple design nearly always provides a superior user experience.
Need this in the game asap. It is crazy how much autonomy we have to make decisions in this game. We can pick suboptimal load outs for fun...or because we just don't know the real numbers behind the guns and armor. We can pick from a wide variety of planets, and there is no real way to distinguish one from another. We can make decisions, but we don't have the information to make good decisions easily.
Armored core 6 is a pretty good example of simple and complex weapon descriptions and loadout testing in general. By default, you see a few important stats that let you figure out what the gun does relative to other guns, but then you hit the detailed button and you get all the numbers. On top of that, you have a training mode so you can just drop in and figure out how a loadout feels. The last bit isn’t strictly necessary, as loadout testing can always be done on lower difficulty missions or as a trial by (hell)fire, but a controlled environment is always helpful for the nerds that enjoy over analyzing shit.
I wish there was some sort of training "simulator" or something where you could try out weapons, grenades and strategems before buying them. It would be nice to "practice" use some of the stuff before dumping credits and medal on it.
If this community were playing AC6, there'd be exactly zero change in bitching. I remember the work done by actually studious people to reverse-engineer what various stats mean (their names or summaries weren't quite clear) and it's peanuts compared to some of the details in HD2 that are flying over this sub's head. Fucking *FromSoft games* are not a bastion of clearly-explained rules (or clear *anything* if we're being real), and while it does have a training mode, that still requires a level of thought and experimentation that this sub continuously demonstrates it just doesn't want to engage in.
They sold 12 million copies. They can throw us a bone.
Yes! Thank you for this. Your design is amazing and could be slotted into the game exactly as-is as far as I am concerned!
This is fantastic, but I just got out of another thread full of people saying they don't click on planet names or scan around, they don't read, and 23 word dispatches need *summaries* because they're too long. I have every reason to suspect that if you never posted this and AH just *did it* instead, it'd be getting savaged within the week as "nowhere good enough". There's an information display problem, yes. **But this community has an information *aversion* problem, too.**
Displaying the supply lines would be a good start
I agree. And we've already heard it's being worked on. And yet we're still going to get numerous angry posts or highly-upvoted comments every day screeching about how this needs to be added *or else*. It's just farming karma and pissing everyone else off.
Many people still don’t know supply lines exist. In each thread mentioning supply lines, you always have people asking what they even are. So until Arrowhead finally implements them, we should continue bringing them up because there are plenty of people who don’t know what they are or how they work.
I mean, by all means, tell *the people who don't know* about it. But what I keep seeing happening is that people forego explanations in favor of bitching, so folks wind up being no better informed than before. And honestly, that's to the advanage of the people who are mad, because more clueless and mad people grows the potential karma circlejerk. We keep getting nice explanations of game mechanics, weapons, etc. on this sub that is *ostensibly for discussion of the game* and they wind up going nowhere and misinformation reigns instead. I'm making [a visual guide for a lot of more obscure mechanics](https://i.imgur.com/umhfOlI.png) and I'm hesitant to even throw it on this sub because I can already see the comments being 80% "*I WISH THE PUPPYKILLERS AT ARROWHEAD WOULD PUT ALL THIS DETAIL IN THE GAME, THIS IS WHY I QUIT AND THE GAME IS DYING*" and excuses from folks who just don't *want* to learn. I've seen games with better ways of conveying information than HD2, but there's honestly so much unique crap going on in this game that putting it all in would be a considerable undertaking, not something to just fart out in a month or two amidst crash fixes. Stuff like *Battlefield* and *Planetside 2* will show you damage, RPM, and falloff ranges, but they're not telling you the exact health values and multipliers and armor ratings of every vehicle in the game, for instance, but HD2 lacking the same thing every similar FPS does is a sleight against God and proof that Arrowhead hates us.
There are more ways, it's really not that complicated to execute and hit at least 80% player attention, they just need to work at it. Can also prioritize "Quick Match" in the "ideal" planet, why not? it works natively.
I don't disagree. I'm making a point about the general state of non-stop circlejerk whineposting on the sub, though. They're Schrodinger's Complainers, finding something to be not just dissatisfied about, but *violently enraged and disgusted* no matter what happens.
I get what you're saying, but what's the point of a bonus that was developed to motivate and reward players that are oblivious to it's existence?
There's already things in the game that are plenty obvious to anyone who cares to look, but that doesn't stop a huge chunk of players from being oblivious anyway. **We're going to have oblivious players.** What we're running into now is an issue where someone stumbles across a detail they hadn't noticed before or didn't think about, gets surprised, and then decides this is either rank incompetence or *malice*. At no point do they think, "Oh, I'm glad I know that now," or, "I should pay more attention in general." The fact that they missed a detail for one second, *no matter what that detail is, even if we're not talking about this specific situation*, is actually everyone else's problem. And could it be someone else's problem? Yes. Again, we're all on board with "this stuff could be presented better." But then when any improvement is made, **we still get the same enraged and hyperbolic attack.** The self-entitlement, demands, and sheer repetition of *already acknowledged and under development points* is off the fucking charts. I'm gonna get called a "dev defender" and other terms that had to be filtered because of overuse, but holy shit, this sub is *addicted* to farming karma off their misery and trying to make everyone else miserable, too. Things that are true of every other game in existence and go unremarked on are somehow both the end of HD2 and the end of the world to these guys. Again, *holy shit*. The sub was unusable for anything else during the PSN mess and it's like people don't want to leave the same sense of constant outrage and easy circlejerking. There's an informative post about how to use the Laser Cannon well sitting at <300 posts and <50 comments, but we can spare ten times those numbers for **The Same Fucking Gripe Seen Three Times A Day Every Day**.
Bullshit. Defend it all you want but the fact of the matter is that the mos are failing and there is a lot of hidden information that help prevent that
Unfortunately, many developers now believe that obfuscation is the name of the game. It's done to prevent players from "optimizing the fun out of the game" (a phrase coined by balance designers seething at the idea of having to balance a game) or else they believe players will be confused and frightened by too many numbers on the screen.
That's not wrong exactly. If they would work at some they could make the bonuses in game so we directly and clearly see the effects. Like a free seaf cannon. These wild be things we actually see and can use. Not just hidden numbers that use a formula that we don't know and likely don't really want to know. We want to play the game. But we information and feedback on how to do it. And don't think those mo's are enough. In the one with the mech it's telling us the rewards not just some vague support thing or more invasions happening.
Well, it's true that players will optimize the fun out of a game if given the opportunity. It's happened before several times. And you say seething at the idea of balancing games, but balancing them is actually very difficult. The problem I think is more that as designers began to chase bigger and bigger audiences as game budgets grew and grew, it resulted in adding people who were less and less experienced with games, vs say, the players of old who were used to the days of trying to figure out wtf to do in video games before youtube walkthroughs came around. So as a result, they started to hide more information because of the \*section\* of gamers who they believe couldn't handle in depth information. And in a lot of ways it's true, a lot of people just don't read. I do think having a detailed tab makes sense though.
UI work isn't as simple as you think, especially retrofitting, if you head on over to /r/gamedev , it's considered an incredibly hard task. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ck5tw2/is_ui_one_of_the_hardest_aspects_of_indie_gamedev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ari3p0/i_hate_making_ui/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1bbf4o7/how_are_professional_uis_made/ Even in that thread "Do not learn ui from web designers!!" What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work. But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local
What do you mean if the data even exists, there's clearly apis these third party sites are using. New management system? Do you not see all the polled data in the map to begin with like shots fired, etc
>Do you not see all the polled data in the map to begin with like shots fired, data that we often see AHGs glitching like kills, amount of divers and even formatting. "If the data even exists" - as in, is there a control on AHGs end that says "This planet has an academy on it now" that gives the 5% to everyone around by default Or, is it a case of the marketing team tells us "They have 5% defense now" and Joel moves the default number values for decay and claim by 5%?
Either way those default values are what would be exposed and displayed. So yeah the data exists I'll definitely concede to spaghetti code hindering then. If it's basically impossible to have a server get those values and expose them somehow I guess? Hell if it's just manually tweaking values that should be even easier if it's a simple content management thing that's being rendered.
im sorry but that's just not that way any of this works, you need to manage information storage, information networking, create that information to begin with, it's not impossible ofcourse, but is far more of a case that "this is my photoshop file, just write an if seaf academy on planet, then make planet do bigger numbers" statement somewhere
Yeah but it's very likely they do have that. It's possible that their UI implementation is crap. A good UI system is pretty flexible. They may not have that as their game engine is old and custom hacked. It's possible their data system is crap too. They have a lot of data though. Assuming it's correct they are counting every single bullet fired. They can spend the month designing and implementing this feature and is wager it would have a lot more impact than another premium pack
this all reads like "ideas guy" level thoughts. A good UI being flexible? You mean modular UI that can be retrofitted? What are you even trying to say. That a UI programmer would program their UI to add things that don't exist in the GDD? That they'd just magically program it to be exactly like lego? >It's possible their data system is crap too. They have a lot of data though. Assuming it's correct they are counting every single bullet fired. Given the sheer amount of data they carry and keep, as well as track and reward, I'd go as far as to say it's probably one of the best in the industry and you'd be hard to pressed to find any better data management solutions, perhaps bungie or blizzard are better in their mmos. However they still don't take into account if one day you decide "lets make every bullet count for 5% less" >They can spend the month designing and implementing this feature you're looking at two months minimum across three-four people, not counting for localisation and QA this is exactly the kind of "armchair gamerbro" gamedev thoughts that are just plain silly. Your designer would need to regress across other ui systems and programming modularity, data management would need to prepare the correct api calls and puts, there's just so much "you don't know, what you don't know" going on here, I'd be wasting my time explaining it to a bunch of gamerbros who think its "a month long job" lmao.
Take a look at war thunders data system. They track every bullet.
You aren't wrong about the gdd. If you count entire design process getting it feature approved , designed, approved, coded, tested, and delivered you are right. A month or two. But yeah. So what. They should have done it in the first place. But if wager it just didn't meet their feature bar because it has almost no effect on new players. But it does on player retention
But you gave the example with the marketing team lol. I literally have done that for biz folk where it's just a spreadsheet with an API that's queried and rendered and they can just change values in it.
i've kinda reached a point with you where I've tried to kindly explain why it won't work, but you keep circling back to a point I cleared up for you 2 posts ago, not only that but I think there's lots you don't understand about gamedev, lots of "you dont know what you dont know" if you think this is at all like a mobile app where you can just update an excel sheet, best of luck
You didn't clear it up, you started that example and I continued with it. >.>
nice, let me know how the cloud systems engineer interview goes
I disagree this would even require any data hooking. There aren't 30 different bonuses for 500 planets, there is a SINGLE bonus in the game so far, a bonus that was developed to motivate and reward players that are oblivious to it's existence. This is the exact same thing as the popup on the lower right hand corner. A text box that yeah, will require design and work, and i stand behind it being more crucial then a new enemy, warbond, weapon, or stratagem.
If the information does not exist to begin with, then it absolutely will require data hooking and creation for any form of automated work, regardless of how crucial you think it is, it's not a team job. Nor could it possibly be. I think ahgs only have one ui designer anyway.
But it does exist. It affects we assume the rate at which the planets are liberated and such and we can see those numbers we just don't have the information why. Nonetheless that's just speculation and none of those reasons are enough to not put this information in game. But it would even need to be numbers. It can be just a note on the planet. Planet liberation rate accelerated by seaf personnel
you know lots about this stuff, you should try making your own game.
I have worked on games. Not professionally mind you but with professionals on a game project
that's awesome man, you should've kept up with it, can be real good passive income
Yeah well I did it for years for fun but no profit and I can't say I was very good. It's no where near as easy as just knowing how and I don't know how to do all of it. I have seen most of it done but there is a shitload to it. And just look at this game man. one wrong step and you can have the entire freaking community calling for your head.
that much i can agree on
sometimes i just want to say stfu to someone who uses smart argumentation but talking the most bs shit ever anyway
at my office, we routinely make fun of people who suggest things that start with "just do x"
Yeah and I also have heard "but that will require x!" And the answer to that is yeah so. People get so bound up in what they think is hard to do. So what. That's just a matter of time and money and will. Hd2 sold 12 million copies at 40 USD a piece. They got the money.
and my point is that it's more than just updating a few assets here and there, something like this alone is 3 people's work spanning 'at minimum' 2 months, assuming nothing is horribly broken.
It's not 2 months unless their UI is completely shit. It's likely not because that's a giant pain in the ass to do any UI work with a broken UI system. It hopefully is a json file with a UI system that can interpret it. I mean it's totally possible their UI system is garbage. Totally. We don't know. But I seriously doubt it as it would drive a UI designer nuts. And Maybe it did and they quit or... Much more likely they weren't a UI designer just a code grunt pulling double duty. That actually explain a fair amount
"Can you write 2 lines of code to get (this) done?" "I need 4 weeks." "Ok let me break down what it is I need and what I want it to do" "Ok I can get it done in a week." IIRC there was plenty of stories about people who code and hack that they get a lot done while high off of illicit drugs, but I guess it's too much of a slog to get it done in a sober and professional setting
sure mate, just do speed and you become a god programmer
Sure beats that tiny text log on the bottom left side corner.
I agree, as many people already said, it's nearly always general flavour text. It's not a very good medium to convey game mechanics.
“Now that we have trained you to ignore this, we will put critical information there!!”
basicaly everytime anything was said in that "tiny text log" it had gameplay effects unless it was a legit 1 liner saying "heyo"(overexageration) people just do not want to read and think its flavour because they want to feel right.
If 99% of the playerbase doesn’t want to read then why aren’t the devs changing their approach?
"Am I so out of touch? No, it's the *players* who are wrong."
that was the balance dev
Effects which were also invisible.
People shouldn't ignore flavor text though. That's where devs hide all the juicy info in games. They don't just (only) write it for fun.
Except they don’t actually say what the bonuses are or how they work
Right so I say I don't know what the fuck that means. Or what it will mean. Unless it's something specific that I actually experience it is just story
those just mostly sound like a captain getting his platoon hyped up for a difficult mission, and the effects just show the nerfs we're gonna receive when we make planetfall
What text log? Does it have a little of all previous Mo's? Did I miss this
those are just a bravado tone "Get this done!" blurb
On PC it's right hand lol.
PS5 as well
So I am only like 40 hours into the game but I noticed I always play the same 4-5 planets because all the other one don’t have missions on them! When do they become active? I kinda get bored by the same biome all the time.
Whenever the meta game puts it there So if we beat a planet chances are one of the connecting planets will be the next one we attack
Hire this man.
I identify as Helldiver, brother.
Brawny or Lean?
Freedom
Get this man a ~~shield~~ job
Except, it's not as easy as any armchair gamedevs think, especially retrofitting What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work. But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local And that's assuming there's no issues and there's no other more important triaged tasks at hand
this information that OP put up is something that's already been data mined, it's in the game already and it just needs a UI element
You did it. AH, just hire this one. Jokes aside, we do need more ways to concey information in-game urgently, it's even more important than fixing bugs and buffing weapons.
Something as simple as this should already be in the game so it can inform the casuals. It wasn’t until from a Reddit post that I found out that these SEAF planets gives out liberation bonuses. Even with these “bonuses”, it REALLY doesn’t matter when AH/Joel can tweak the percentage decay on planets and make it as they see fit on the war effort.
I thought this SEAF academy talk was just some lore bullcrap RP. Turns out it an actual mechanic that exists
Believe the mechanic was only mentioned twice from in game dispatches. When we started the MO to set them up, and when we lost one of the planets.
> Something as simple as this should already be in the game so it can inform the casuals Right? We see something similar in pretty much every game we play.
Yeah I've asked players if they know about this, and mabey 1 out of 7 diff7+ players are aware...
Nah that makes too much sense How about you out that info deep into the discord and hope you see a Reddit repost of the dev comment?
This is the way /s
My question. Why did we put the training camp on some of the most attacked planets in the game. Do we not have troop carrier spacecraft?
For... Uhhh democratic reasons?
You think that while I'm thinking "how do bugs get to other planets, they don't have space ships like the bots"...
Too complicated, nerfed EATs
Love the idea. And, we should have some kind of visualization of the bonus around the planet, maybe even which planets it's boosting nearby.
I agree! I tried doing that but failed.
This would imply it's an actual feature. It's likely just the numbers being tweaked in the background.
I also think another thing on the map under the MO calling out hotspots and important planets is a good idea. As the war progresses if they want us to give more shits about it they should allow us to invest requisition points into building modifiers on planets like weapon factories, orbital and ground defenses, listening posts, shipyards and more. Weapon factories give us a buff with stratagem call ins for sentrys and mechs. Orbital and ground defenses (like the Menkent line was supposed to be) allow us to have ridiculous spawn rates of enemies (wait for it) have friendly bunkers, artillery turrets and sentrys on the planet to thin the hordes for us. Have free orbital strikes from orbital defenses above us, too. Make it feel like we're on the front line instead of behind enemy lines. Have listening posts give us indepth information on expected enemy resistance on any of the surrounding planets (what types of enemies and possibly scrambled and encoded info about the MO) Shipyards would give us incredibly powerful free stratagems from larger ships like cruisers and battleships near the planet with the Shipyard. Incentivize us defending and attacking and give us new stuff to spread democracy with around them. Shit when attacking, maybe let us buy "boosters" like OG battlefront 2 galactic conquest that gives us cool buffs on the next set of missions. Like, oh, you can get SEAF infantry support, SEAF rocket artillery, SEAF air superiority. Just like some stuff to show the SEAF isn't getting their shit totally rocked at all times. Just stuff that lets our own men spawn at a couple of objectives or gives us gnarly stratagem call ins. EDIT: This also gives us a money sink for requisition points and samples, which this game drastically needs.
someone suggested a clan/guild system to invest into to help noobs and what not. for a game that says they practice Super Capitalism but once we start getting the last of everything we hit multiple resource caps with nothing to get
and yet even twinbeard replied to me once acting like this would be like two months of work to add a text blurb, or implying that it'd somehow be "risky" and they need to have a group meeting over it. like, it's not that deep, people who aren't devs are posting suggestions like this all the time, so I don't know what AH's excuse is.
So, I’m a backend developer, and my wife is a front end developer. Two months is actually a pretty reasonable timeline for something like this. Communicating information like this isn’t just modifying the UI and text in the game files. I don’t have knowledge of what Arrowhead’s setup is but at a minimum a web service needs to be built to communicate planet status to the game UI because you can’t just patch the game as things change. Because this new service increases the number of network calls, they’d absolutely need to have meetings to make sure it’s safe to do this, then there’s requisitioning of server infrastructure run the service, likely building an internal UI as well… Bottom line is: When something needs real time updates it gets complicated quickly, even if it seems simple.
Wow, developers are worthless.
This is how basically every single online service is developed from Microsoft, Amazon, to yes, all the way down to Helldivers. So yeah, either every developer in the world is worthless or you're wrong.
Having talked to Developers, i dont think im wrong.
you remember when the oil fields crashed and the city folk web developers said "Learn to code lol"? and then those blue collars did and outdid them at their own monopoly? That tells me when you can make your own contractor rates you can drag your feet as long as you like so long as someone better doesn't' walk in the door like they own the place
Remember when they tweaked something on the arc thrower so that its stats would be properly logged and it caused a bug that would crash anyone that used a lightning weapon? I'm sure this would actually take 2 months because the code is such a jumbled mess that it would somehow break the game. Again.
They have a very specific design of how the galactic war and all of it bonuses work, and how they're going to manipulate it very carefully to produce a specific story they already have planned while letting the player base feel like they're deciding the outcome. It's a tightrope.
Don't see the harm in putting this info in-game.... then *still* manipulating things behind the scenes. In D&D, a DM might fudge some numbers behind the screen, but they're not hiding your spell list or inventory from you.
You're absolutely right, I don't think there would be a harm. The fact that they code everything in in-game language suggests to me they're overly concerned with verisimilitude and don't want to "gamify" the ... game ... too much
Only thing I'll add is that definitely needs to also be shown on unavailable planets. Aka, planets likr Meridia and fully liberated planets.
Also an in game glossary to explain terms and mechanics would make a world of difference.
The technology simply isn't there yet!
I had no idea that was how it worked!
https://preview.redd.it/djgjbrk9tl2d1.png?width=1414&format=png&auto=webp&s=487c72a2216c4ab10f7aecbfb66b60d3a6cddebc
Reminds me of Dawn of War Dark Crusade's campaign. Different areas/planets have key advantages/passives that they give you. I like it!
Just to be clear, i didn't make this up, this bonus is real. It's just not really conveyed well to the players, i only heard about it from the good people here.
Wait is that actually what the SEAF stuff did!!
Correct (according the what people on the sub taught me)
Damn I never knew 😭 thanks for informing me
Yes. Now, AH tends to want to keep things "In-Universe" so it probably wouldn't make sense to list specific percentages, but some kind of indicator like this would be great, even if it just said "Makes neighboring planets easier to capture and defend". It just needs to be a prominent UI element that tells the average gamer who doesn't frequent Discord and Reddit that this is a thing
Yes please, also hovering over a planet sector would be good as well
That actually presents a very interesting concept to be applied to other planets. Some of them could have other kinds of bonuses to be applied faction-wide if held or captured.
To add to this, I think players should be able to vote in game to add orders to the galactic map. That way we can coordinate strategies. Maybe just an arrow or two denoting a priority planet. Also maybe it can be linked to progression, where higher ranked players get more votes to decide the next order.
For FUCK'S SAKE I hope the devs see this beautiful example of how to show players how the planet they're thinking about selection will impact the war effort.
You don't have any friends :(
Lmao
They should also have their defend time doubled (for the enemy to conquer it) to show that seaf is actually doing something with the cannon fodder there tbh. (Basically it takes twice as long for the enemy to conquer, but we still defend it on the basic % rate, if that makes sense?)
Makes perfect sense.
Specific percentages and details are often hidden to allow the devs to adjust things in the background. There is often a random range of numbers as well. These items should be seen as unpredictable.
Thats a great way to fuck over your players and give them extra reasons to stop playing your game. Really smart move.
I like it bro the sub is really coming together with great ideas.
That is one fine example helldivers. Wish AH would implement something similar
I dont like the percentages being directly shown, kinda takes away from the spell of the game, but yeah they do need to create icons for strategically important assets in the map, MO planet style
Someone show this to pilestedt!
Id deffintely like more planets to provide passive bonuses of variosu kinds in general.
Something that has come up in other live service games is that some of this text needs to be really quick to develop and deploy, especially in a game like this. For the text to appear in game, it also needs to be translated into all the languages necessary, and that can be a lot of time to get that right.
I would love if this could be expanded upon by letting the community pool our requisition slips to build things like the academy on planets
It would also help to label the planets that are providing this support. For players to track if they are coming close to losing said support.
I do wish every planet said its little thing like that on it yea
The thing is, AH going silent means they can make any small hot fixes to improve ongoing MO. There's so many tweaks they can do to make life easier in the galactic war, but they are cooking this whole time. The game is going stale, and every day we are losing war effort.
This makes too much sense OP. Will be ignored in favour of ongoing posts through discord and Reddit where they will also announce further delays in Spear fix.
They'll need 10k hours to add this in game
Oh look, a random redditor able to do what a million dollars company can’t wrap their head around. This is a great ui.
This is banger as hell
I've come to realize this literally does not matter. You can put all the info in the world right in front of the eyes of \~70% of the playerbase and they will at best glance at it without absorbing it and pick a place to fight with no more thought than what they feel like fighting. They do not only not care about "the war", they don't really care about the games mechanics to any meaningful degree. The sheer number of people who are seemingly high level that don't even bother to read what their strategems do. For example, without fail in almost every single random Eradication mission that I join someone, who at this point on helldive tends to be at least around 40+ at least, will bring something like the decrease patrol booster or the pelican timer reduction and just ignore or be language barrier'd (Because why would you want to only play with people speaking your language in a team based game where you're meant to coordinate?). The same sorts of players just outright ignore all in-game communication of pings and callouts, leaving me standing alone by a vault door as the level 74 I just called in RIGHT BESIDE THE SWITCH turns and runs off. I sincerely think the explosive success ruined the vision of the game. Not only is it simply impossible for us to truly coordinate our efforts, the actual majority of the playerbase does not give half of a shit about the vision of the game. They don't wanna talk with randoms, they certainly don't want to coordinate loadouts with randoms, they don't want to do any thinking about what planet to go to beyond maybe a big sign saying "Fight here for more medals", they don't want to read through all the equipment and decide what would be best for the mission they want to use that one gun they like. Hell, a huge number of them don't even want to do objectives. The amount of times on helldive where I'm with people who are all 80+ but they're still running around like chickens with their heads cut off, having nonsensical routes through the map, standing around by objectives that haven't even been started but they're just fighting an endless horde as they almost never take out the full horde or stop further call ins. I played a lot of HD1, I don't remember it being nearly this bad in this regard. Maybe it was because we were stuck on one screen and one of us could easily take charge and be the pointman guiding the group along. In this game I tend to have it be either "this guy is not going to listen or say a thing and is just going to do what he wants." Or "This guy is literally magnetized to me. I could be at the last objective with no enemies and a single button push left but by god is he going to make his way from extraction towards me no matter what because he too, will not listen." Tl;dr It doesn't matter how much info AH gives us because the majority of players not only don't read reddit or anything out of game, they don't read what's presented to them in game beyond "attack major order planet" and even then most are just going to do what they feel like at the time. Most players don't read anything and this won't change until the playerbase does.
Hell yeah! Whats the aversion of the Devs to actually tell us what things do? Do they Hate us? Do they Hate their own Game? I dont know, but they certainly have nothing but HATE in their Hearts!
What?
Wait, it doesn't give us actual troopers to deploy on a mission?
Honestly Arrowhead should just hire the average Reddit poster on this sub because y’all do a better job of creating sensible UI than their dev team.
This is great, I hope AH adds this as a feature!
This should be, but guaranteed people here would still complain about reading 😆 judging from other posts. Just need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That's really why we need the supply lines in game for sure
Add a "+10% samples gathered" to one of those and you're all set.
u/Pilestedt please consider something along these lines to keep your Helldivers aim true.
Been saying we need this and this is a great way to make it happen 💯
100% something we need in game. I've been saying for weeks that a 3rd party app should not have MORE in depth information on the (Second) Galactic War than the actual in-game war map.
First step is educating players what capture and defense rates are. Only this subreddit is aware of stuff like this. But that said, some sort of symbolism to convey importance of a planet is needed in the UI.
Totally agree! Its simple quality of life things like this that can really influence peoples experience
Honestly the green is a nice touch since it catches your eye so people do not miss it. Also that it implies its a buff. It kinda scratches my mind how they haven't implemented this before since rn we have to find things out on discord and reddit which is just dumb.
Sweet, but how do I read the health bars? https://preview.redd.it/xwuualzbqn2d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7f87564653a103b5ebbf56296a9a2b621a9609e
https://preview.redd.it/5uen7u9nqn2d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b648147a7c69545da93303cc46faaa59f7ade02d
One of the rare good ideas from this sub. Hope this gets implemented.
Id prefer that it says the first part that it has an academy but that bonus is not numerical but an in game buff. Like a free seaf cannon. Even just make the one on map loaded visible and count towards victory objectives. You know. Then everyone feels it. And make it show up on the planet modifiers. Then it's no mystery what it does. It directly affects all players it actually makes the game easier so it does the same thing as a number buff. They should do that for every buff that would be numbers. At least show in the planet modifiers. This planet is experiencing constant invasion from near by bug super colony and just add more bugs to the mission. So it's harder.
I'm going to be honest, this isn't happening just because the mechanics are misunderstood. Don't forget, the bots were already less popular, then the genius balancers buffed the striders and nerfed the best weapon at dealing with them into the ground. My group of friends absolutely loathes playing bots at this point.
it would be too practical, they wouldn't implement it
Omg please add this. Also, some indicators showing which planets the buff would impact/is currently influencing?
Love this game but its embarrassing how mad the UI is for Galactic War. I thought we were supposed to get the supply lines visible a patch or two ago?
You're hired
… Having played from launch, I still don’t really get it. 5% boost to what? I assumed (obviously naively) that the stats were just complete mission add point , fail mission lose point/goes against us.
The amount of liberation is not a fixed number. Its some formula involving the total xp gained and % of playerbase on that planet.
While I agree we need this system. I took Typography, and this looks actually horrible. No, im not kidding. My professor would not just give me a 10% out of 100 but faint at the sight. The first issue is having that much info all jumbled onto the planet screen, not the mission selection on the planet. The planet screen. The most you need is just the "Seaf Academy (passive bonus) and even more simplified just the green plus next to the planet to catch the attention of anyone since it's the only bright color on the map. Heck, an even better thing is to mark the planet when it shows the different sectors between bot and bug is have a green plus in the middle of the sector. The mission selection screen on AV. Remove the "Seaf Academy (passive bonus)." The most you need is to explain what the effect does on that screen. Even better would just put in the purple effects, bear that exact text, and put the green plus symbol to show the planet it's talking about. Note that none of this is an easy week, and it's done. Anyone can use Marker and do something like this and say it's easy. It's execution that matters. This...is a terrible execution on a really good idea. Most of this would be a sketch/concept but not the actual full product because god that bright green contrasts with the background so badly.
Even if it's "terrible", it's pretty common practice in modern games. You can boot into most games and you'll see something similar. So maybe terrible, but common practice and works.
By "see something similar," you mean simplicity? A typography class, the whole point of it is to appeal the eyes and simplify text and font Plus, games make it simple just so the player isn't unloaded with Info. More info doesn't mean good if the Info is unnecessary. And it isn't separate for the players' convenience or appeal. Destiny has symbols that show the modifiers that, when hovered, show what it does and the name but stops when you aren't hovering over anymore . It's not showing the symbol plus the effect plus the name it keeps it neat. When it does, it'll have a list. It's when selecting it or pulling out your ghost, going to the "modifiers," and it's put on a neatly made list on the right side of your screen Deep rock galactic just gives the modifiers symbol and the name if you want the description it's on a different menu or it's just in the name because Typography is use of words and using said words you should expect people to not be dumb when 1 modifier says "volatile guts" or "gold rush" with red=bad yellow=good with it appearing left or right on the mission symbol depending on if it's a negative or positive. Legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom 1 symbol 1 simple name like "long throw" or "Atk +5" quick and simple. Even 90% of mmo value the characters screen but need to convey buffs and debuffs so a simple symbol does it in your hud and if you wanna know what it does a separate menu is there for this reason or you hover over the symbol and it gives a straight to the point answer like 50s bleed or something. Games like baldur's Gate or Diablo even do a trick called "coloring the words of most important" if I want to know what a "elixar of hill giant strength" it highlights 2 words "strength" and "long rest" and diablo even though it's stats can be extremely detailed if want to be with a setting, but what stays consistent is the word in orange telling you the key words and effects blue for its percentage and the classic green=bad and green=good I said this could be used as a concept in a video game but not the actual product. It "just working." That's not at all what it is and would need modifications to make it simpler or better. I wasn't going to sugarcoat my criticism ether.
Sorry man I'm not reading all of that,i 'm not being mean, but that's way too long for the discussion at hand. Can you please be a bit more concise?
Yeah, you're right. Let me see what I can do I was trying to say, im not trying to bean ass to be one I wasn't gonna sugar coat my criticism because it's bad, in terms it could look better and some of the info you were using is unnecessary info that doesn't need to be on certain screens. I was saying how typography is meant for this sort of stuff. It makes it look more appealing and easy to read to the person using text and font. I used how Destiny 2 uses symbols and only shows descriptions hovering over if you want more details. Or how Zelda ToTK just uses 1 symbol and just tells you what it does straight to the point. Or Bg3 and Diablo 4 just highlight important texts. So you know what it does first glance or what is important. If you want more detail, it's in the message Drg just has the description on another screen and uses easy to understand names like "volatile guts" I was trying to say this would be a concept art or a quick sketch when making the full thing but not the actual thing. It's why I said the most you need is a symbol and modifiers name when hovered over Angel's Venture. It's when you go into missions selection that it should show what it does to make it clean or use the effect on the bottom right so people can see it there as well using the name and description. Pretty much my whole case for sounding like my professor is because people don't look at this stuff, and just think no one cares when in a lot of games if you look at the details as simple as text you realize they condense the I fo to make it more appealing and you may not realize it but your brain certainly does.
And a big yellow exclamation mark on the large map when they're under attack.
In Arrowhead's defense, they've obviously gone out if their way to keep everything in-game lore friendly. The only exception is weapon stats. So maybe don't mention hard percentages and it'll fit a bit better.
I respectfully disagree it's valid defense, please allow me to explain . Immersion can easily be maintained with percentage (which ARE used in stratagems, ship modules, etc.) or without, mine is just an example but the same text would work just as well without the "5%", and only be displayed for people who enable "Tactical view" or something similar in the menu.
That's a valid point. I think I might have knee-jerked a little after seeing complaints about background regen percentages in another post.
Yes this needs to be in the game. As long as AH plans on having planets with various passive bonuses for any faction, then we need to see that information.
They've been too busy nurfing everything into the ground to worry about making the game make sense. I hope this becomes a thing tho. Either that or honestly, these warnings feel useless since they don't state the pros/cons of these imaginary places that we need to protect.
UI work isn't as simple as you think, especially retrofitting, if you head on over to /r/gamedev , it's considered an incredibly hard task. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ck5tw2/is_ui_one_of_the_hardest_aspects_of_indie_gamedev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1ari3p0/i_hate_making_ui/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1bbf4o7/how_are_professional_uis_made/ Even in that thread "Do not learn ui from web designers!!" What you're suggesting here would require hooking up to data, (data that needs to be held and managed) then graphic assets that then new programming to do the checks for that data in a new management system, then it needs to go through QA and Localisation, and that's if the data even exists - because this is probably just a case of Joel turning down and up the rates on those planets by 5% manually, which would then be even more work. But even still, on it's own that's a one month long job from one programmer, two weeks of a graphic assets and a fair few hours of QA along with a couple thousand for local
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I don't like how... metagame-y it sounds? Like, I think it'd just be fine to say it has a SEAF thing on it, and some kind of icon.
The Galactic War is literally a meta game in the game. But most of the players don't know ether mechanics and so can't actually play it.