UT Health Bar Concept

[Zaccubus]

in this video i talk about how a health bar makes life easyer for new viewers / players understand who is winning in a fight

if you wanna skip most of the video go to 4:08 where i show the Health bars for Spectators concept

[mandu]

You make a great case for some form of health indicator from a spectators point of view. Good illustrative video and reasoning :3

[FliccC]

This is a good suggestion Zacc!

I think this is definitely a major topic in the context of making the game attractive for the audience! While we need clear politics on what kind of information the players themselves have at their disposal, at the same time we need to have a strong focus on delivering necessary information to the audience in the most direct and convenient way possible. I agree with you there that nothing makes a critical moment more visually exciting than a couple of health-bars dropping ridiculously low all of a sudden. As an audience you might not understand why, but you will immediately understand that it is important and get very excited about it.

Personally I favor the health-bar above the head much more, since I feel it is even more important to maintain constant visibility of player-models throughout the course of a match. Regardless I think a combination of bright skins (which don't change color) with a health-bar above the head would be the best way of accomplishing both: constant and easy visibility of players, giving information about movement and positioning, as well as direct information on health-levels.

I think we can go a long way with making this game audience-friendly. There is so much potential.

[rePeteGG]

120% agreed. And thats only the first step towards a audience friendly ArenaFPS

[Harry Spanner]

Good job addressing the need to strike a visual balance that communicates vital information without causing too much clutter.

One approach to health bars that has been largely overlooked is the implementation in Brood War, explained here. Two posts up, notice how the interceptor is on top when it occupies the same space as the carrier's health bar.

[Trev]

I'm not a fan of bright skins so naturally I'm inclined to go with a bar but overall I like the idea. I have a couple ideas to interject here, though.

How would you handle super health? Would the bar extend out further to accommodate this or does the full length of the bar account for super max health? Would it also display shield amount as well? Would the shield belt get its own separate bar as it currently acts differently than normal shield? I feel the desired goal of the bar system is lost without properly displaying these properties but this then leads to 3 or 4 times as much clutter on the screen. If we're talking from strictly a spectator point of view then I don't see it as a huge problem, just something to think about.

From a game play perspective, I would like to see a health bar display on the player I'm currently looking at (friend or foe) and only one at a time.

[Wormbo]

For duels the fighting game health bar approach may actually be the better way to do it. It certainly works well in JB2004 arena fights:

Armor and super health could be handled by additional health bars. The health exceeding the standard maximum could be displayed as health bar overlaying the standard health bar with a different color, e.g. blue. Armor could be a separate bar above or below the health bar. Or the game just calculates total hit points and displays them as a bar. (Though I think separating health and armor makes more sense.)

[NamelessHero]

I'm not a fan of bright skins so naturally I'm inclined to go with a bar but overall I like the idea. I have a couple ideas to interject here, though.

How would you handle super health? Would the bar extend out further to accommodate this or does the full length of the bar account for super max health? Would it also display shield amount as well? Would the shield belt get its own separate bar as it currently acts differently than normal shield? I feel the desired goal of the bar system is lost without properly displaying these properties but this then leads to 3 or 4 times as much clutter on the screen. If we're talking from strictly a spectator point of view then I don't see it as a huge problem, just something to think about.

As far as displaying super health I would just go for an extra color overlay (ex, if health is green over a red background, once it fills to 100 a blue bar starts filling on top of it to indicate overhealth).

[FliccC]

For duels the fighting game health bar approach may actually be the better way to do it. It certainly works well in JB2004 arena fights:

Armor and super health could be handled by additional health bars. The health exceeding the standard maximum could be displayed as health bar overlaying the standard health bar with a different color, e.g. blue. Armor could be a separate bar above or below the health bar. Or the game just calculates total hit points and displays them as a bar. (Though I think separating health and armor makes more sense.)

I think this example shows pretty well what doesn't work. You look away from the action in order to get the information and then you look back on the screen. Now I have 10 years of experience with UT2004 and this bot wasn't even dodging, still it was extremely distracting.

Having the health bar above the head is far superior in my opinion.

For those who point out that you might run into trouble with overlapping health bars: Make the health bars of the player who is in front be on top, also make the size of the health bars in- decrease according to distance and perspective.

[Zaccubus]

Once im back home from germany i will post up some ideas

I'm not a fan of bright skins so naturally I'm inclined to go with a bar but overall I like the idea. I have a couple ideas to interject here, though.

How would you handle super health? Would the bar extend out further to accommodate this or does the full length of the bar account for super max health? Would it also display shield amount as well? Would the shield belt get its own separate bar as it currently acts differently than normal shield? I feel the desired goal of the bar system is lost without properly displaying these properties but this then leads to 3 or 4 times as much clutter on the screen. If we're talking from strictly a spectator point of view then I don't see it as a huge problem, just something to think about.

From a game play perspective, I would like to see a health bar display on the player I'm currently looking at (friend or foe) and only one at a time.

[PayBack]

As long as this is only for spectators fine, but also it should be a configurable option.

I dont think you should be able to see another players health, that takes away from the skill of the game. Knowing how far you have damaged an enemy based on the shots you landed is very important. If I am fighting another player and we are both getting good shots, if he thinks I have more health than I really do and he is really low, he might try to make an escape for health. If I am a skilled player I know his health is really low and instead of taking the same opportunity to find health I pursue him, ill more than likely kill him.

If we have to have visual health indicators fine, but dont make it some magic floating bar above players that takes no skill to figure out. Maybe have characters get "damaged" the lower their health gets. Blood/bruises/pale skin/slumping stances/limping movement Just not a giant floating bar that follows them around.

[Yaiklai]

As long as this is only for spectators fine, but also it should be a configurable option.

I dont think you should be able to see another players health, that takes away from the skill of the game. Knowing how far you have damaged an enemy based on the shots you landed is very important. If I am fighting another player and we are both getting good shots, if he thinks I have more health than I really do and he is really low, he might try to make an escape for health. If I am a skilled player I know his health is really low and instead of taking the same opportunity to find health I pursue him, ill more than likely kill him.

If we have to have visual health indicators fine, but dont make it some magic floating bar above players that takes no skill to figure out. Maybe have characters get "damaged" the lower their health gets. Blood/bruises/pale skin/slumping stances/limping movement Just not a giant floating bar that follows them around.

It's not meant for players anyway, only spectators.

[Nonemm]

I'm not a fan of bright skins so naturally I'm inclined to go with a bar but overall I like the idea. I have a couple ideas to interject here, though.

How would you handle super health? Would the bar extend out further to accommodate this or does the full length of the bar account for super max health? Would it also display shield amount as well? Would the shield belt get its own separate bar as it currently acts differently than normal shield? I feel the desired goal of the bar system is lost without properly displaying these properties but this then leads to 3 or 4 times as much clutter on the screen. If we're talking from strictly a spectator point of view then I don't see it as a huge problem, just something to think about.

From a game play perspective, I would like to see a health bar display on the player I'm currently looking at (friend or foe) and only one at a time.

I dont see this as a problem. As another person mentioned in the thread, just overlay the green healthbar with another one. Shield would be indicated with a yellow bar above the healtbar - It might also help to indicate(maybe in orange?) if belt is included in the shielding since belt works differently than the other armor parts.(at least in the current builds) Even if the playermodel shows that he has belt, you still dont know how much of the overall shielding is belt and how much is simple armor. The current belt system only shows if the player has belt or not.

I think the points zaccubus brought up cant be ignored, I think its extremely important to make ut visually very (very) easy to understand. Its not uncommon that people watch tournaments of games they havent even played yet. The more simple and more understandable the overall spectator layout is, the more interesting it will be for "non players" to watch the game. I also think that the healthbar that is visible all the time is the best since it also shows the progress of the other player(gaining more health, shield etc.). What I might change since you mentioned TF2 - only make the healthbar visible when the other players are on screen, dont show the bars through walls. I think it would be more appealing to only show player silhouettes through walls.

[Yaiklai]

I would recommend people to take a look at ElvUI for WoW (yes it's a very different game...) which does a lot of things just right, there are a lot of UI ideas you can port over to UT in some form in ElvUI.

[Wormbo]

Having the health bar above the head is far superior in my opinion.

But only while the player is in view. What if the other player is behind the camera or otherwise out of view, e.g. far away or behind a wall?