UT Health Bar Concept

[Yaiklai]

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?

In addition to Healthbars (they are good for in-action) the Interface can simply show health values for each player.

[Zaccubus]

I like the ideas that jay suggested with damage player models but the hp really is to help anyone understand whats happening in a fight. i come up with a few ideas for showing hp and amour but i think this simple 1 is the best tbh , my other ideas where to show just the HB bar and show all the amour and boots on the player model and if your hurts u see it fall off and smash , again quite similar to what Jay suggested but felt be difficult to show say if a shock combo blocks that info in a fight

[ioX]

Nice video Zaccubus. This would really help spectators better understand what is going on while spectating.

What I think would also be a good addition to the health bar concept is actual "hit visuals". Basically you can see a little number jump off the player when he/she is being hit (e.g. player X hits player Y with sniper rifle and a small "60" is being displayed). Hopefully this will also give some more clarification regarding splash damage and direct hits (see below example from QL).

[wsdrdsw]

Nice video Zaccubus. This would really help spectators better understand what is going on while spectating.

What I think would also be a good addition to the health bar concept is actual "hit visuals". Basically you can see a little number jump off the player when he/she is being hit (e.g. player X hits player Y with sniper rifle and a small "60" is being displayed). Hopefully this will also give some more clarification regarding splash damage and direct hits (see below example from QL).

yes cool feature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gvk0f3BvhA#t=03m53s

[SDAHeatWave]

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 agree with Wombo on the duels. I think UT99 Jailbreak's health bar was a little better compare to 2k4:

Watch at 2:04

Also have you thought about team matches? Because i do not think health bar above the head would work at all. There would be too many health bars (10 max) and a lot of the action would be blocked by the health bars.

[DSK-]

I definitely think this would be a great thing to have for spectators and casters, particularly if you can have them hovering over player's heads (hey, I'm a Starcraft 2 fan!).

Also, I think having this along with the power-up spawn times and other tidbits of information found in CompaMut could also come in handy so that spectators can:

A) See patterns in what players/teams are doing in relation to the spawns of key power-ups, pick-ups and weapons, and hopefully learn something as a result and...

B) Allow casters and camera people (UTV?) to set-up for engagements at key map 'hot spots' and potentially give detailed commentary and analysis.

CompaMut in action:

[Fartuess]

Stopped watching vid in half... Does author watched any of QL duel tournaments? Very often what makes everything more exciting is not knowing everything at some more intense points in matches. Additionaly you can guess how much health opponent have based on way he acts and what he did before, but this is still approximation which leaves some space for suprises.

[ArKtur]

@Fartuess: Sure you can think like this ... okay a Railgun does 80dmg, etc ... but: wea are talking here about Spectators. For a Spectator who has never seen a 1vs1 match, in UT or Quake etc. its hard to tell whats going on. Imagine you would have no clue about the map layout, no clue about the weapons and the armor + health system and you are watching the game ... For that person it's hard to tell what's going on and thats actually what Zaccubus is pointing out in a really good way.

[Devvy]

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.

Having to look away from the action could be a problem. I think CS:GO took a step in the right direction for displaying player health to spectators by overlaying a visual effect where the players themselves become healthbars as shown:


I believe a step in this direction could result in a clean, highly-visible and easy to read display for spectators. There could be a number of different ways to implement a similar visualization, such as a coloured outline around the player, fading from green to red as they lose health for example.

[Fartuess]

@Fartuess: Sure you can think like this ... okay a Railgun does 80dmg, etc ... but: wea are talking here about Spectators. For a Spectator who has never seen a 1vs1 match, in UT or Quake etc. its hard to tell whats going on. Imagine you would have no clue about the map layout, no clue about the weapons and the armor + health system and you are watching the game ... For that person it's hard to tell what's going on and thats actually what Zaccubus is pointing out in a really good way.

So its going to go in direction "take from people who like watching e-sport arena shooters and give to someone who don't even understand what the game is about". I'm not convinced. For the most of time casters switch POV for a while and show how much health second player was left with. I would say it works quite well right now and to risk ruining it you have to be sure it will work exactly as planned. People who could get through not knowing exactly how much health everybody have all the time might probably not understand further concepts.

[Zaccubus]

So its going to go in direction "take from people who like watching e-sport arena shooters and give to someone who don't even understand what the game is about". I'm not convinced. For the most of time casters switch POV for a while and show how much health second player was left with. I would say it works quite well right now and to risk ruining it you have to be sure it will work exactly as planned. People who could get through not knowing exactly how much health everybody have all the time might probably not understand further concepts.

How is it taking away from Players like your self... who has a understanding of the game already and how much dmg is outputted ... and Switching POV in a First person shooter is very quick with no transition a new player might not even see this switch.... and if your changing pov to check on both sides of the action its just a burring mess to a new viewer.

[Fartuess]

So health bars should be added because completely new person who don't know anything of UT and don't speak english and don't figure out switching cameras and fighting context despite fact that it flattens watching skirmishes because you know exactly how fight is going. In case of Quake LG fights would become boring. I agree that spectator should know more about what's going on than players, but he shouldn't know completely everything. It is work of commentator to dose information properly. I'm cautious for unwanted side effects that may arise from said solution.

But you mentioned interesting point. Player switching may not be that obvious and UI coloring might not be enough... Maybe red/blue colored accents on weapons?

[Zaccubus]

how does it flatten it ? it brings more intense moments seeing someone on red bar of hp dodgeing and diving and trying to escape or try to get that epic combo back at the clutch moment your thinking to much like a player i feel on this subject and not as a spectator.

and what unwanted side effects? when the this would be able to toggle on and off?

[Fartuess]

it brings more intense moments seeing someone on red bar of hp dodgeing and diving and trying to escape or try to get that epic combo back at the clutch moment your thinking to much like a player i feel on this subject and not as a spectator.

Well... good casters are already fullfilling this job quite good. And i'm thinking from perspective of watching QL matches. I play Arena shooters quite rarely for last couple of years and most of my high-level knowledge actually commes from watching QL tournaments :P.

But if this was turnable option then it could be disabled if it turns out to have side effects. Thats very good point.