DUST Search - [Feedback] Shield > Armour GÇô Detailed Explanation

EXASTRA INVICTAS wrote:

CCP Remnant wrote:

BL4CKST4R wrote:

what heavies really need is resistance to damage taken, supplemented with a limited increase in EHP.

We've considered this, but the problem is that right now there is no good feedback for damage resistance in the game. Adding this without all the necessary UI improvements would likely just end up with the majority of players thinking their weapons suck instead of understanding they're just less effective against certain targets. The current target intel is a very barebones implementation. It needs to be a lot better.

Adding more information to weapons and dropsuits is not a bad idea either. Labeling weapons as "Hybrid", "Laser", "Projectile", and "Explosive" in game would go a long way. Adding damage and resistance indicators is also not a bad idea. It doesn't have to be exactly like EVE, but some way for people to learn "Okay, my Precision Rifle (Projectile) with the standard ammo will do well against armor tanks (gallente/amarr suits) but not so well against the shield tanks (caldari/matari)."

They would be able to take this information with them into battle and notice the difference in performance as well.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 5 post(s)
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 501	Posted - 2013.06.03 17:19:00 - [1] - Quote I like somebody's suggestion that armor should have an endurance and sprint penalty rather than regular speed penalty. Basically if you have complex armor you can't 'sprint' worth crap. My response: 1) Logi=gun off the field- sort of true, but a player hiding while their shields recharge is also a 'gun off the field'. 2) Just to be fair you didn't factor weapon usages/effectiveness against these different suits. For example the AR does 110% to shield and 90% to Armor. AR-Against the complex modules... Complex shield has 59.4 EHP Complex armor has 126 EHP So technically when you are considering the AR, the complex armor is 2.12x better than complex shield. When looking at scrambler rifle it is 2.61x better. 3) "In the time it takes to be killed....shield recharge rep wins out over all" Shield depletion delay time is big elephant in the room here IMO. The 5-10 seconds that a shield player's shield is depleted is their big weakness.
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 509	Posted - 2013.06.06 11:17:00 - [2] - Quote CCP Remnant wrote: BL4CKST4R wrote: what heavies really need is resistance to damage taken, supplemented with a limited increase in EHP. We've considered this, but the problem is that right now there is no good feedback for damage resistance in the game. Adding this without all the necessary UI improvements would likely just end up with the majority of players thinking their weapons suck instead of understanding they're just less effective against certain targets. The current target intel is a very barebones implementation. It needs to be a lot better. Why not have a visual indicator to represent efficiency on the weapon radial indicator, as in next to the ammo count or something. As you point different targets it would fill-up or empty based on your target's efficiency rating.
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 509	Posted - 2013.06.06 12:35:00 - [3] - Quote EXASTRA INVICTAS wrote: CCP Remnant wrote: BL4CKST4R wrote: what heavies really need is resistance to damage taken, supplemented with a limited increase in EHP. We've considered this, but the problem is that right now there is no good feedback for damage resistance in the game. Adding this without all the necessary UI improvements would likely just end up with the majority of players thinking their weapons suck instead of understanding they're just less effective against certain targets. The current target intel is a very barebones implementation. It needs to be a lot better. Adding more information to weapons and dropsuits is not a bad idea either. Labeling weapons as "Hybrid", "Laser", "Projectile", and "Explosive" in game would go a long way. Adding damage and resistance indicators is also not a bad idea. It doesn't have to be exactly like EVE, but some way for people to learn "Okay, my Precision Rifle (Projectile) with the standard ammo will do well against armor tanks (gallente/amarr suits) but not so well against the shield tanks (caldari/matari)." They would be able to take this information with them into battle and notice the difference in performance as well. Actually, if we already have the bars floating over enemy players' heads, it might make more sense to have resistance profiles on these bars rather than native to a weapon HUD, or in the quick-info text (current location). You could have a third bar above or below the current health bars that somehow mimics damage rates vs armor and shield. I'm thinking a bar with a line in the center with the shield rating corresponding to the length of the left side of the bar, and armor the length of the right. A 50% full shield side would mean that your weapon does 100% damage to shield and vice versa. So when a new player would see 2 really short bars hovering above a HAV when their AR is equipped, they would know not to give away their position and shoot at it.
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 509	Posted - 2013.06.06 12:57:00 - [4] - Quote EXASTRA INVICTAS wrote: Ah! I was not exactly meaning to imply the information be relative to the HUD, but rather: 1) The Weapon information/stats details 2) The dropsuit information/stats details 3) The dropsuit fitting window Sorry about that. As for your idea, would you mind making a quick mockup in MSPaint or something? I am not sure I am getting the image you are trying to draw. Here's a quick MS paint mockup. Top bar: relative damage of current weapon on target. Current weapon is a laser rifle, it is showing much better damage to shield. Middile/bottom bar: Shield/armor health. Much larger length on top shows that we are looking at a shield tank. Player then can know, okay, I can expect my weapon will take longer to go through the top bar rather than the bottom.
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 509	Posted - 2013.06.06 13:04:00 - [5] - Quote BL4CKST4R wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: EXASTRA INVICTAS wrote: Ah! I was not exactly meaning to imply the information be relative to the HUD, but rather: 1) The Weapon information/stats details 2) The dropsuit information/stats details 3) The dropsuit fitting window Sorry about that. As for your idea, would you mind making a quick mockup in MSPaint or something? I am not sure I am getting the image you are trying to draw. Here's a quick MS paint mockup. Top bar: relative damage of current weapon on target. Current weapon is a laser rifle, it is showing much better damage to shield. Middile/bottom bar: Shield/armor health. The target has 2x more shield than armor, but with the current intel, you wouldn't know this from the health bars. Much larger length on top shows that we are looking at a shield tank. Player then can know, "Okay, I can expect my weapon will take longer to go through the top bar rather than the bottom." Numbers are better than bars :) You mean you'd rather scan the screen and read numbers and do the math to think about your weapons damage than have a color coded hueristic to more intuitively understand you and your target's relative strengths? I think numbers being better is debateable (at least on the infantry level). Also with some players, screen resolution becomes a design challenge.
Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors Reverberation Project 509	Posted - 2013.06.06 13:21:00 - [6] - Quote BL4CKST4R wrote: I dislike bars because they trick the mind into thinking that whenever you make a change, nothing happens. For example lets say you have 100 HP, and you add 20 HP, a bar will not show this change. With weapon damage it is far worse, because in Dust 514 guns can do over 100% damage, so how would you display that with a bar? You could still have the target indication text. I"m not saying get rid of it. Also your suggestion (show info being the main source of resistance intel) wouldn't be helpful in that it doesn't fix the problem of real-time target intel. Anyway, with regard to the 'over 100% damge issue' that's where the heuristic design comes in. I specifically color coded the bars as a way to suggest that. A ruby red (the same color as regular health bar) indicates 100% (or +/- 5%) damage, a darker red is <95% and a pinkish red is >105%. Then with that and the relative length of the bar on either side of the line, you'd get to see how much more damage your weapon does to shield relative to armor. If the bar on the left looks 50% longer than the bar on the right (120% shield to 80% armor damage) then you know that your weapon will be 50% more effective to shield. This idea seemed pretty intuitive to me, but then again, I'm prefer visuals/charts to tables...especially when I have to make a lot of quick decisions off of them.