Hey everyone, me again.
just wondering what peoples thoughts where on giving health bars to baddies. Like floating over their heads or under them.
Might be nice to know how much more I have to hammer on em before they go down. (mainly for boss fights really)
There is a suggestions board...
I never liked the sight of moving bars obscuring things that I might possibly be very, very interested in seeing... If something like this is implemented, it better be toggleable. Personally, I would prefer the colour of the damage points to change. Blue numbers would mean he's barely scratched, red numbers would mean he'll be served a dish of dandelion roots soon.
I suggested this months ago.
Apparently it was the dumbest idea ever.
"Personally, I would prefer the colour of the damage points to change. Blue numbers would mean he's barely scratched, red numbers would mean he'll be served a dish of dandelion roots soon."
This. I love this.
Not only does it help out those of us who'd like to know how well we're doing in the killing of things (or if it might be time to cut and run) but it's a visual (not quantified/directly numbers-based) clue that OOO seems to like. And making it toggle-able seems like it might satisfy everyone.
Now, if this thread could just be moved to Suggestions, it'd be awesome. ;-)
How about it shows a bar, very slim above our own health bar. Or it can replace the bar since we have a spot that shows our health in the first place, be it not all of or health we still see when it gets low.
How much is a bar anyway? Sometimes I have 1 pip of health left and I can give half of it to a teammate to res and sometimes I can't. Are they just representations of larger integers like 100hp and damage can come in any fraction of that? Or is it closer to the +4s and +16s armor and vitapod values would have you believe and somehow the many many different levels of damage from different monster attacks at different depths and damage resistances from armors and UVs all just gets funneled into the closest half a pip value?
I forget who actually figured it out, but I remember reading that a "bar" is actually 40 health. I do not remember how they came up with the number... 3rd party program maybe?
You can sometimes rev another player when you have one bar because the bars are not exact, they show a rough estimate of your health. Assuming that the guy was right a half bar is anywhere from 1-20 health and a full bar is 21-40 health. To rev with one bar you'd need exactly 40 health.
I do wish I could remember who had figured it out...
~Gwen
yeah, I know about the suggestions board. but the traffic is almost null compared to here. that and I prefer refining ideas before suggesting them.
like my terrible idea to add weapon proficiencies (*winces*)
1. Make it toggle-able, as previously stated on the thread
2. Make it not very distracting.
Floating health bars might be too distracting to me. I'd like a hotkey similar to "alt" for Warcraft 3 to display enemy health bars temporarily.
Or...
Checking out Bastion (awesome singleplayer game by the way), the health of the enemy is shown as a "dotted" circle on the ground and is always behind (technically, "below", 3d-wise) any enemy graphics so they don't block the action. The Bastion "health ring" also comes in a blue color which shouldn't interfere with any of the "ground spikes" that telegraph an enemy attack.
In response to Gwen, I think it's more like the actual Zelda games, and this is what this individual had come up with, but (s)he had multiplied the amount by ten...
This is merely my own theory, but I think one pip of health represents four HP, but only every second is visualized. So, one full pip would represent either 3 or 4 HP, and half a pip 1 or 2. In that sense, it's just like the hearts from the Legend of Zelda games, but in a different shape.
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As for the topic, I think of Super Smash Bros. Brawl; Subspace Emissary. Whenever you hit an enemy, a headshot of that enemy appears on your screen alongside their health bar. I think this could be do-able as a toggled option.
@Shidara:
"This is merely my own theory, but I think one pip of health represents four HP, but only every second is visualized. So, one full pip would represent either 3 or 4 HP, and half a pip 1 or 2. In that sense, it's just like the hearts from the Legend of Zelda games, but in a different shape."
I thought that for a while, but (1) the empirical evidence doesn't support it, and (2) it doesn't make sense from a design standpoint. I believe health is simply a floating point number.
(1) If it's true that a full pip represents either "3" or "4" HP, then roughly half the time, when you pick up barely enough hearts to fill your entire meter, you should not be able to pick up one more heart because you're actually full (i.e., you're at the "4" mark instead of the "3" mark). In practice, 99% of the time, you CAN pick up one more heart, which means you're far more often at the "3" mark than at the "4" mark. This makes it far more likely that that a full pip represents the range (0.5, 1] than the set {0.75, 1}.
(2) There are a LOT of different potential defense values, and they increase in very small increments. If health is discretized to such a coarse level, it doesn't make sense for defense to be at a much finer level. This makes it far more likely that health is simply floating point.
@Actinium:
"Sometimes I have 1 pip of health left and I can give half of it to a teammate to res and sometimes I can't."
I don't believe it's documented on the wiki, but it's at least somewhat common knowledge that if you have "enough" (2.0?) health left and you take what would be a lethal blow, you're instead reduced to exactly 1.0 health, which gives you 1 pip of health that can actually be used to res. Because health and damage are (as far as I can tell) floating point, if you end up at 1 pip any other way, you're infinitely more likely to be in the (0.5, 1) range than exactly at 1.0, in which case you can't use it to res.
Back on topic: I wouldn't mind seeing boss health bars as a special part of the interface (though it's already been suggested). Health bars in general will probably clutter the screen, but one or two health bars for a couple specific stages seems quite reasonable. There's a lot of precedence for this in action games that tend to hide numbers (Mega Man, a lot of space shooters).
That's a very good suggestion FernPanda, been playing that as well and I think the health bar/attack/meter could be pulled off, such as a cross between Bastion and SK.
Now I just need a narrator. You have experience, how about joining my Ventrilo server and tell me what's happening in the game while it's happening :)
about the health pips...has anyone else noticed the number of pips changes with the tier?
As far as a summary goes:
1) health bars would be a much welcomed addition
2) MUST be toggle-able (Xp)
3) As far as integration
Health bars would only appear for Damaged enemies and bosses(no matter the health of the boss)
the "bar" would be represented by an additional "halo" of pips(maybe hearts?) around the feet of entities in addition to their attack "halo"
Additional thoughts:
Maybe if a baddy hasn't been smacked for a while the pips could fade away after a set time period?
There was a suggestion about the numbers color changing: there's already a system involving the colors of damage numbers. it indicates the severity of damage dealt. that system works in tandem with the "sparks" that fly when you smack baddies(stars)
EDIT: A little more refinement and this should be ready for the suggestions board
"about the health pips...has anyone else noticed the number of pips changes with the tier?"
This is due to the max health-limitation for each tier.
For Tier 1, your armour is only allowed a +1 health boost. (+2 total)
For Tier 2, your armour is only allowed a +3 health boost. (+6 total)
Only at Tier 3 would your armour be allowed to utilize the maximum health boost it can provide you.
Now keep in mind, your health bar will only update when you attempt to equip an item, or pick up/drop a vitapod, (or picking up a mineral while delving,) so before you continue from Moorcroft or Emberlight, make sure that you update your health bar, otherwise you won't get your full health from the get-go.
The only items that would allow you to extend your health beyond the lower tier borders are equipment that were designed to give additional health such as vitasuits and the ancient armour, as well as the scarlet shield and health-boosting trinkets dropped by love puppies.
Actually sounds like a nice addition.