Fireteams *ducks*

(Mustang) #1

There has been a lot of chat about fireteams (FTs) recently. So here is a proposal that might make everyone happy.

Essentially the premise is that FTs are clientside only. That is you don’t have to be invited or accept to join an FT because they are mearly a way for a player to have to hand their preferred list of players on their team.

The players should be able to set the “Default fireteam view” to be either “Full team” or “Empty”. Then people that always want to see all teammates can set it to “Full team” and never have to worry about it again, and people that are after more finegrain control can set it to be “Empty” then manually add their prefered teammates each time they join a server.

If that’s not clear here are some examples. For clarity’s sake the blue bars are health and the red bars are ammo.

Player A wants to always see all their teammates all the time so sets “Default fireteam view” to be “Full team” and sees something like this in-game.

PlayerA.jpg1680×1050 249 KB

Player B wants to see only their friends so sets “Default fireteam view” to be “Empty” then manually adds C and D upon joining the server.

PlayerB.jpg1680×1050 242 KB

Player C also wants to only see their friends so sets “Default fireteam view” to be “Empty”, but for whatever reason has fallen out with D so today only adds B.

PlayerC.jpg1680×1050 240 KB

Player E usually wants to see all their teammates so sets “Default fireteam view” to be “Full team”, but C and G have been TK’ing so E manually removes them.

PlayerE.jpg1680×1050 247 KB

Things might get a little tricky when it comes to FT chat and FT VOIP, but I wonder if it might actually simplify things. Say there were the settings “Accept chat from” and “Accept VOIP from” with the options “Everyone”, “Team”, “Fireteam” and “No-one”.

Then with “Accept VOIP from” set to “Fireteam” removing someone from your FT will also mute them. Win-win!

OFC there would also need to be a setting “Show fireteam overlay” for people that want to untick it and never see the overlay taking up valuable screen real estate.

Unrelated to the above this is a mock-up of something along the lines of DarkangelUK’s suggestion in #3 where Player A creates a fireteam and invites D and F. So A, D and F are the fireteam and the rest of the team is displayed for additional information purposes.

DA.jpg1680×1050 250 KB

(stealth6) #2

That’s a really nice idea. I also had an idea, but I think yours might be more elegant.

Anyway here it is: You join a lobby with your friends and join servers together. This puts you into a fireteam with your friends. The party leader (person who created the lobby) can decide if the fireteam is private or public and can accept new members.

If the fireteam is public then it is displayed on the scoreboard and other players can send a request to join. You can invite people from your friend list to your lobby / fireteam, but not random people (to avoid spam)

(DarkangelUK) #3

I’d rather have A as standard but separate Fireteams sectioned off if you choose to join/create one. So if you’re in a fireteam with D and F, the top of the list shows D and F in a different colour with the rest of the team listed below in default colours. Is there any specific reason that anyone wouldn’t want to see their whole teams status?

(zenstar) #4

Agree with DAUK. You may want to “favourite” some people so they appear on top, but you should be aware of everyone if it doesn’t take up too much space.

IMO fireteams are primarily for comminucation -> VOIP or text chat. If that’s the case then fireteams can’t be client side. The server needs to know where to send the text. Will there be built in VOIP? I’d think most people would get together with their friends on vent or something so you don’t need a fireteam for that.

Are the teams really big enough to warrent fireteams for text chats?

(Anti) #5

Just to be clear, is the important thing to you the status information on each of your friends, being able to communicate with them, being able to find them in the world, or all of the above?

I know that’s a lot of questions but I’m trying to get an idea of your goal here. There are a lot of other ways we can try to solve the various needs listed above, many of which might be slightly more elegant than a Fireteam HUD element.

For example a lot of the information you’re after could be made part of friend and foe indicators and crosshair info.

(DarkangelUK) #6

I’d say all of the above but I’m of the thinking that you should be able to see the status of your team by default and shouldn’t really be a fireteam only perk. I think the rest is to communicate with them separately and find them in the world when pubbing.

(mitsuhiko) #7

Just thinking out loud here: about about a tactical key similar to RO2 that shows that stuff while being pressed?

(zenstar) #8

I like that idea. But have the option for a toggle too. If I were to play medic I’d like to have the info up all the time, but as an engineer I’d only want to know every now and then. Different roles may want different information.

Is it possible to have a HUD layout for each class? Basically UI options saved separately for each class.

From a communication with friends point of view: I still see most people using a 3rd party solution. I don’t really care about text chats to an exclusive fireteam. Teamchat is fine for that and the teams are small enough not to need segregation. I don’t voice chat with strangers so I’d only be chatting on vent with irl friends.

For finding friends to play with: some sort of friend system may be nice. See who’s online and where they’re playing with an option to join the game if there are free slots.

(stealth6) #9

All of the above. I don’t want to be able to “find” them, I just want to know their location so I know their position. As for communication, I think it would be better if it was just team VOIP, but I can understand that some people are shy or are afraid of trolls on pubs etc. Which makes team Voip kind of problematic.

(amazinglarry) #10

I was actually going to update my ‘customizable ui’ post with an idea that was basically this… but since it’s here!

I want the ability to have my teammates listed somewhere so I’m able to quickly reference who’s alive, at how much health (and maybe ammo)… what classes there are etc. I’d even go so far as to have it customizable to the point where you can choose to display certain classes, or have a priority list.

I’m also all for having friend/party fireteams, too… but I haven’t though that far ahead. I just want to know that ‘Hey, half my team is dead, maybe I’ll wait up since they’ll be deploying soon.’ without hitting tab. But of course, I want the user to have the option of de-cluttering their screen if they choose to, too.

(stealth6) #11

I had another idea for fireteams. The ability to “ping” the minimap like in dota2. Dare I say it the pings are better than vsays, just a little “look here right now” icon.

What does this have to do with fireteams? Well I though the best way to implement it would be to give it to a leader figure to guide a team. Problems arise when you give it to one person on a whole team so I thought fireteams would be a good way to solve that. Then you can choose to be in the fireteam or not and which fireteam. You could also give people the ability to elect a new fireteam leader (although you could just make a new fireteam)

This would also be a good feature to help your friends who are new to the game. Instead of saying follow me and them having trouble tracking you between all the action. You say go to the FT beacon on your minimap. Then they can refer to their minimap when they want to rather than constantly having to keep half an eye out for their friend.

The fireteam leader would be able to place pings by looking around in first person perspective holding the action key (alt) and clicking their mouse to mark a spot (marking in the 3D world) or bringing up the map and then moving a cursor and clicking on the map. (2D alternative)
The 3D marking could also be accompanied by a cool first and third person animation of him pointing towards the ping. (very briefly)

(mortis) #12

Friend finding is an excellent feature, especially if it can be further subdivided into clan-comp friends and pug friends. I could see a use for both. In game fireteams have always been super useful in previous SD products, namely W:ET and ETQW…

(j4b) #13

This things could be an extra. What i need in a fireteam is:

  • name - LP - class

I dont want to look on scoreboard if one of my teammates got the brain to change class.
Neither i want to track a player with my crosshair to see if a m8 need health.

(iwound) #14

i like the idea of highlighting my fireteam within a full list of players.
and if i understand you right then i also like your idea of creating your own custom fireteam made up of whoever you like and not relying on an accepted invite.

It would have to be fast selectable for me ie press and hold to view. and would have to have full fireteam benefits ie team mates highlighted in the field.
chat would have to be normal as they wont know they are in your custom team.
to extend the idea maybe you could identify a real team, by cycling through a fireteams list. highlight 1 then view the team moving and maybe you like what they are doing, so you select that team and add it to your custom list. of course you could just ask to join.

Im also interested in whether player C has made up with player D. :frowning: its so sad they were good mates. why did they fall out? :armadillo :

i think the the usefulness of fireteams though is somewhat diminished by the lack of spawn waves for both sides.

(Runeforce) #15

Fireteams are also used by people to socialise, by using voip and chat to talk in private and in their own language.

Teams and global are also used for that, just with a common reference.

Removing voip as default, means socialising takes a hit. I don’t want that!

Make it smart and easy (and recognisable how) to mute players client-side.

(stealth6) #16

[QUOTE=Runeforce;429944]Fireteams are also used by people to socialise, by using voip and chat to talk in private and in their own language.

Teams and global are also used for that, just with a common reference.

Removing voip as default, means socialising takes a hit. (We don’t want that!)[/QUOTE]

It would be pretty cool to have 2 voip buttons (channels), 1 for team and 1 for fireteam.

(papa519) #17

fireteam is nice. also i think they should remove being able to see what classes the other teams players are.

(Apoc) #18

[QUOTE=Anti;415466]Just to be clear, is the important thing to you the status information on each of your friends, being able to communicate with them, being able to find them in the world, or all of the above?

I know that’s a lot of questions but I’m trying to get an idea of your goal here. There are a lot of other ways we can try to solve the various needs listed above, many of which might be slightly more elegant than a Fireteam HUD element.

For example a lot of the information you’re after could be made part of friend and foe indicators and crosshair info.[/QUOTE]

Its important to know your teammates hp/status without having to look at them, it is so incredibly useful. Additionally it means you can play seriously with team-mates that arent on teamspeak. One of the most important pieces of information is knowing who is alive and where they are alive, and if they died, where they died, this is fine when on teamspeak, but i feel fireteams could go some way in providing an alternate for public play

(Samurai.) #19

For me fireteams were a really awesome feature, the main reason on propubs/comp in ETQW for fireteams was to display the HP of your teammates, as a medic this was very useful (healing players while they do an objective if super low without requiring their communication), it also showed how many of your team were 0hp but reviveable or gibbed letting you know how passive or aggressive you should play if last teammate alive defending an objective.

I also find adding elements like this to the HUD aren’t too bad for ‘cluttering the screen up’ as long as the option to increase transparency is available.

(Mustang) #20

So is anything like this being blandished around the office?