Spotting friendly / enemy and downed / dead players

(kamikazee) #1

[ol]
[li]Teammates / enemies[/li]I was defending an objective together with a cov-op when suddenly an enemy cov-op pops up. Both start dancing around each other until one whips out his knife and kills the other. I’m still dumbstruck when the remaining cov-op suddenly head-snipes me. Turns out it was the enemy, yet the player names were still around…
[li]To-be gibbed enemies[/li]A somewhat similar story happens with 0 HP players, only their player name shows they are still alive. There are some animations, but they are subtle. [/ol]

Here’s some other quotes from other people in other threads:

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;409594]Yeah I like the distinctiveness of the class models. I think I would have liked unique models for the enemy side as well rather than using the same for both. On occasion when I don’t see the player name above a team mates head, I instinctively shoot at the silhouette. No biggy really, but in ET and QW you could instantly determine friend from foe without hesitation.[/QUOTE][QUOTE=iwound;412349]same here. id like the two teams to look totally different, maybe team colours. also each side needs background info that is different even if its just french v brits. not brit v brit. my preference would be.
multinational corp mercenaries v the people left in london.
when the corp team comes to take the peoples resources the people fight back. woo![/QUOTE]

Or for downed players:

TL;DR: I feel that overhead markers are not enough to discern friend from foe or downed from dead.

[ul][li]Something crude like team colours could go a long way to immediately see who’s who.[/li][li]To make the difference between a downed player and a gibbed one, it might even be better to be more explicit than just an animation: give them a T-pose versus hands on chest.[/ul][/li]These “simple” things could go a long way to instinctively spot the important targets instead of hovering over the target and reading the text out loud.

EDIT: layout, rewording

EDIT2:
Related (newer) thread: http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/33956-Clear-team-distinction

(Mustang) #2

I said it jokingly in another thread, but team bandanas would be cool.

Gibbed vs incapped should be fixed with a decent incapped animation IMO.

(Mustang) #3

Please delete me

(tokamak) #4

Yeah, simply turning grey is insufficient. Not that it would matter for Rex, we just like to abuse his corpse for the heck of it.

(Bananas) #5

[QUOTE=Mustang;414590]I said it jokingly in another thread, but team bananas would be cool.

Gibbed vs incapped should be fixed with a decent incapped animation IMO.[/QUOTE]Great idea!

(Mustang) #6

Noob :tongue:

(Pytox) #7

Team Bananas vs Team Strogg Bananas :tongue::stroggbanana:
Maybe there could be blue hats vs red hats? :smiley:

(SockDog) #8

Agree that it can be tough/confusing to identify players. I’m only assuming this is going to get a lot worse once custom models are introduced.

Not at the expense of the ragdolls. The HUD seems to work fine for me. I can see yellow downed players and go to them. If those hud elements also showed low health and flashed when someone calls a medic etc that’d be great.

On gibbed players, just get rid of the corpses straight away.

(Mustang) #9

I’m not talking about at the expense of anything. Keep the ragdoll falling behaviour, then just add a “flapping around in pain” animation that plays when the body hits the floor.

No thanks, I find that lifeless corpses littering the streets adds to the immersion.

(SockDog) #10

But the problem with ragdolls has always been that it’s very hard to get an animation playing when the ragdoll can fall in a totally random position. As it stands there is still the client side physics on the ragdolls meaning where you fall isn’t necessarily where your team mate sees you fall. Not saying it’s impossible, GTA IV has some good transitions on their ragdolls that could solve the problem but I wonder if that isn’t going to be a lot of work.

I just wouldn’t want to swap out the dynamic nature of ragdolls for very static animations just to pull off an incapped indicator.

No thanks, I find that lifeless corpses littering the streets adds to the immersion.

They vanish already but just after a period of time. From what I understand the issue is that it is hard to discern a gibbed enemy from a incapped one. Simplest solution would be to just remove the gibbed players quicker as they have no bearing on the rest of the game. The only other thing that comes to mind is just tweaking the two states so that downed players are more vibrant and gibbed more washed out than they currently are.

(stealth6) #11

If they remove them quicker then they need to add an animation like unreal or borderlands that the body gets sucked up into thin air or something :D. Not saying that they should remove them faster though since dead bodies add to immersion as already mentioned and they can tell you a story of what just happened. (enemies nearby etc)

(SockDog) #12

Agreed. How would you feel about a HUD element floating over incapped players? I think this would solve the issue but I’m not sure if it will look just ugly as hell. What about a chalk outline where the body was or if not chalk a human shaped blood/damp patch? You’d still get the story part then but it would remove the unnecessary clutter.

(Mustang) #13

It might look a bit odd but dead bodies could decay into a skeleton.

Not sure how we’d explain it storyline wise though.

(stealth6) #14

[QUOTE=Mustang;414804]It might look a bit odd but dead bodies could decay into a skeleton.

Not sure how we’d explain it storyline wise though.[/QUOTE]

As I already mentioned on irc, their skin should melt, then followed by organs and bones, the goo would leak through the cracks in the pavement. As for story, LB is some kind of toxic wasteland? Anything goes! :smiley: Obviously not going to happen though since it would make the game 18+ and I just have a sick sick mind.

(Mustang) #15

do it, do it, do it

(Didn’t see your post on IRC, but great minds and all that)

(SockDog) #16

I don’t think it melting and leaving a skeleton behind would be 18+ worthy, the organ bit maybe. :slight_smile:

Transitioning the incapped players into something other than a downed player does sound like a workable solution though. Certainly something that could add a bit of unique flair to the game. I’d really like to see how the engine coped with drawing a chalk like round a character with their head stuck in the wall.

OBJ_LondonBridge-PC-05-19.40.010.jpg1280×800 286 KB

(Shiv) #17

What if the incapped players groaned? A bit like the turrets/mines.

(DarkangelUK) #18

At the moment when you shoot a downed player you get a standard hitsound, how about if that sound changed when the player was properly gibbed? Something subtle but easily identifiable, means I’d only waste 1 or 2 bullets rather than 5 or 10 making sure.

(kamikazee) #19

I believe the “suicide” sound also plays when you gib a player. I think it only plays near the body though, so it doesn’t work when gibbing with bullets from afar.

(iwound) #20

any news on there being different models for the two teams or do i fight against my twin. good looking though he may be.