Major GUI Issues: AIR STRIKES AND ORBITAL LASERS


(SeeJay) #1

I’m not sure where to post this, but I consider these to be broken game elements.
Both the orbital laser and the air strike have woefully inadequate audio-visual cues to warn the victims to move out of the way.

It’s incredibly frustrating to hear air strike warning sound come from a random direction and not have a clear idea where it’s coming from or where to hide from it. The tiny line on the ground is often very difficult to see and much smaller than the actual blast radius. Moreover, the air strike warning signs often appear behind some other object or corner, causing even more unavoidable deaths. This is neither fun nor is it fair. Without clear visual cues, sometimes the only response is to try and guess where the optimal target would be and avoid that for 5 seconds.

Possible solution: one you have used already. The coloured flare gas from previous games was perfect; use that. The GUI needs to big and showy to be fair.

Similarly, the orbital laser is even less clear. By the time player sees the laser, it’s usually too late to dodge it.

The solution here would be two laser modes: a harmless warm-up mode that lasts 1 second, and an exaggerated death ray mode. A clearer audio queue wouldn’t hurt either.

====Short and Sweet List of other GUI gripes====
It is difficult to tell mines apart from one team to the next --> more coloured dots
Objective GUI often obscures enemies --> lower transparency if person is aiming at objective, or elevate GUI on y-axis
active GUI objectives need emphasis to mirror audio alerts --> complementary objective GUI on top of screen, highlight when active
Redundant objective video in stopwatch mode, robs players of strategy chat time --> allow veteran players to opt out.
Objective videos lack geographic context --> have camera speedily zoom from one objective to the next instead of cut.


(Mr-Penguin) #2

Lasers are shown by 3 converging lines. I do agree that It needs to be more visible though, but that would make my job as a Kira main a whole lot harder. The laser itself is already visible enough though, and it is actually quite easy to dodge and hear. I’m sure that most mercs can outrun it or at least make it out of line of sight or under a roof. It’s not the laser itself that gets it kills, it’s your enemy’s stupidity. I’ve seen a lot of people just stand still or hide in a corner when faced with an orbital strike, and those are the last two things you should do when a laser is headed straight towards you.


(XavienX) #3

I think they’re fine, due to their cooldown time. But there is a stupid bug that every once in the while, the airstrike makes no sounds even though you’re literally under it and it just completely demolishes you silently.


(Fate_6) #4

@XavienH5 same sort of thing happens with invisible lasers. Hard to use my Kira when I can’t see where my laser is


(XavienX) #5

Huh, never encountered that but…damn that’s bad lol.


(Ardez1) #6

Do you use a custom config? Some settings significantly decrease the noticeability of telltales. One person I know had them set so low he never saw an airstrike coming in(except for just the grenade piece) before it blew him up.

Maybe turn up your settings some if this is the case?

I know that it is definitely possible to turn off the team telltales on proxies mines as well. Might be the case here.


(Daergar) #7

Sometimes the pillar of fire simply disappears (bright spot on the ground remains), and I am fairly certain this is for everyone given the amount the enemy players that run gleefully right into invisible death. Which is highly amusing, just not working as intended.


(Mr-Penguin) #8

[quote=“Daergar;39819”]Sometimes the pillar of fire simply disappears (bright spot on the ground remains), and I am fairly certain this is for everyone given the amount the enemy players that run gleefully right into invisible death. Which is highly amusing, just not working as intended.
[/quote]
This has happened to me too. It’s insanely hard to direct the laser over long distances when it’s invisible like Phantom.


(Ghosthree3) #9

[quote=“Daergar;39819”]Sometimes the pillar of fire simply disappears (bright spot on the ground remains), and I am fairly certain this is for everyone given the amount the enemy players that run gleefully right into invisible death. Which is highly amusing, just not working as intended.
[/quote]
Yeah this happens to me on max settings.


(SeeJay) #10

Thanks for the reply all.

For the air strike: I’m going to have to wholeheartedly disagree; long cooldowns do not resolve my issues. The air strike should be fun and fair to play against. Currently, it is neither.

I tried going full graphics for this one, just to be sure I wasn’t missing something. [Perhaps I needed a restart, but here’s what I saw.]

That tiny blue line is there, I promise. It’s preposterous that I am expected to see that during a firefight. Is anyone else seeing something different?

I’ve investigated youtube vids to show that it’s mostly GPU settings that are my issues for the lasers and mines. Does anyone have a decent config or know where I could look? My main issues with the defaults is that it causes barely noticeable jumpiness\lag, even at 145 fps. Perhaps I could just tweak to figure out the telltales?

Thanks all.
SeeJay