Target markers and nighttime. - Page 4

Eyeklops · 2012-03-20, 11:54 PM

If they do put Target Markers in, for the love of all that is holy, please, please, please make it so that Aircav cannot see the target markers for infantry. The one thing I really enjoyed about BF3 hardcore was infantry not getting farmed by Jets.

Lokster · 2012-03-21, 01:01 AM

Originally Posted by Eyeklops

If they do put Target Markers in, for the love of all that is holy, please, please, please make it so that Aircav cannot see the target markers for infantry. The one thing I really enjoyed about BF3 hardcore was infantry not getting farmed by Jets.

I absolutely agree with this.

And if we just absolutely can't get rid of them, at least make them A LOT smaller than they are now ...

Yutty · 2012-03-21, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by FastAndFree

Details. Have a 2 sec cooldown on spotting

But okay, I see the point. It could be very bad if implemented incorrectly.

This, plus they really gotta reduce the size or even change the entire icon of the markers they had in the GDC vid. Way too big, if it was smaller or maybe even a little transparent and only stays up for a few secs after you or a teammate manually spots them i'd be fine with it.

Erendil · 2012-03-21, 03:29 AM

Originally Posted by kaffis

And on the flipside, spotting mitigates balance issues that can arise due to artistic concerns.

If all appearance customization is cash only, and having camouflage is a significant advantage (ie, no spotting), then it's suddenly a pay to win feature.

Similarly, some empires' color schemes are much more natural fits for some environments. I could see a standard TR uniform blending in pretty darn well at night on Indar. Not so much an NC one, what with the bright yellow -- any light at all is going to glint off that bright, light color and give them away. Similarly for the Vanu on a continent with some greenery. The purple and teal will fade into shadows reasonably well, while the other empires' schemes might not.

And that's not even getting into issues with color blindness. They're just royally screwed, and marked targets are about their only saving grace when it comes to not even target recognition, but friend or foe identification.

So don't be so quick to write off target markers. They can serve a lot of legitimate purposes in a game. If your strategy relies solely on stealth, you should be using infiltrators. Anything beyond that, and let's see how it shakes out in gameplay.

I'm not too concerned about uniform colors or camo patterns giving someone a gameplay advantage.

From what we've seen, there's not a whole lot of concealment in PS2 so soldiers are going to stick out pretty easily in most cases regardless of uniform color/pattern, esp if they're moving.

Color blindness is a tricky one tho to be sure. IMO games should be designed to tailor at least somewhat to the people who have some degree of this condition, which is why for example I'm okay for enemy identifiers (including at least their name and optionally some sort of "enemy" symbol or possibly their empire's logo) to appear above the heads of non-concealed enemies who are in your particular LoS that you've painted with your crosshairs for a second or so. That way they'd be marked for you and you alone and you wouldn't be given any more info than a color-seeing individual might get standing in your place.

However, the main issue I have with spotting is that if it's too generously applied, multiple in-game targets can get marked for you that have never been within your LoS or earshot merely because one of you teammates saw them, and can allow you to track an opponent around corners, through walls and buildings, over hills, etc with such accuracy that you know their location accurate enough to put a bullet in their skull the instant they're not behind 100% cover, which in effect amounts in my book to a game-sanctioned wallhack.

And IMO, no uniform color, camo pattern, eye condition, social ineptitude over VOIP, lack of tactical experience or ability to work as a team, difficulty in seeing during night battles, etc etc is enough to justify such precise accuracy of tactical detail about an enemy whom your character may not have ever seen unless the system used is severely limiting in its implementation.

Here are some ideas that I think would be good limitations:

You can only see markers for enemies marked by someone currently in your squad, or maybe your outift too. If they leave the squad, the marker they placed disappears.
A mark only lasts for a short duration, like 30 secs to 1 min.
If a squad/outfitmate marks a person that is not in your LoS, he does not get marked for you.
If an already-marked enemy disappears around a corner or behind some sort of cover/concealment his marker should disappear for you the second he leaves LoS.
You can only personally mark a maximum of 3 enemies. If you mark a 4th, the first marker you made disappears for everyone
Markers get darker in shade the darker the ambient light surrounding the marked enemy, to the piont that pitch black night time or basements completely black the mark over someone's head.
You cannot mark enemies from within a vehicle, nor can you see markers on infantry from within a vehicle.

sylphaen · 2012-03-21, 04:17 AM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Nobody cares what you think. Blazealm, Ruwyn, fod, probably stew too.

Are you an intellectual terrorist or something ? People who share an opinion you do not like should not be allowed to talk ?

Quit the "counter-trolling" role and let Hamma and his team do this job. You are being more disruptive by randomly accusing people of wrong behaviour than the people you accuse.

Until proven wrong, they are sharing their opinion and whether you like their idea or not, they should be able to participate without threats or insults. Otherwise, PS-universe would not be a forum anymore but a one-way speaker (skewed in favor of the most vocal and agressive participants).

Skitrel · 2012-03-21, 04:36 AM

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Quit the "counter-trolling" role and let Hamma and his team do this job. You are being more disruptive by randomly accusing people of wrong behaviour than the people you accuse.

You do understand the irony in saying this while doing that job for him also right? Bringing up something that the thread has moved miles away from. This could have been said where it should have been, privately.

On topic. I'm with fod on a couple of things here. 3-5 seconds is exactly how long it should last, it should ONLY show up when a person is within LOS, not through walls. What I mean is that if a person is marked it only shows to players that have some part of that enemy's model in their line of sight, people that don't have to make line of sight contact to confirm the enemy location. Additionally, 15 seconds is ludicrously long. Battlefield's lasts about 5-8 at most, lasting only around 1.5 seconds after an enemy moves into cover and cuts out line of sight.

My issue with LOS is that if an enemy can not be seen by a character then it's movements can't be confirmed, if someone moves into cover while spotted people should not then be able to see his marker running around behind the cover, they should see it if it pops out of cover while still marked, but they shouldn't see it while his movements are essentially unconfirmed.

The colourblind comments ring true for me, I'm shade colourblind. Though so far it hasn't actually posed an issue in identifying enemy player models, though until Battlefield brought out colourblind mode I can confirm that the spot markers were useless and I would shoot absolutely everything, just to be sure.

Vancha · 2012-03-21, 05:27 AM

I think I said it in one of the earlier GDC threads, but I wasn't looking for enemies while watching the GDC videos, I was looking for markers.

Put spotted targets on the radar, or put a shader on the character model, but don't have me looking for a symbol above/beside/below the enemy model as opposed to the enemy model itself. My eye-level should be where I expect to see enemies, not above their heads were there to be "markers".

But then, do we really need "marking" at all? I can understand having enemies show up on the map, or on the radar, but does having "ENEMY HERE" arrows in the environment really improve the quality of the gameplay? Or does it just make things easier?

Coreldan · 2012-03-21, 05:49 AM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

This is one of those wait for beta and it'll get heavily tweaked as time goes on things.

Hope so.

Generally speaking I'm not a big friend of 3D spotting, but it wont make or break PS2 for me, but if I can choose, I'd rather have it out. I'm OK with spotting if it stays radar-only.

But yeah, I believe if it ends up screwing things up a lot, I'm fairly sure it will be tweaked in beta.

The first thing I know that has to be tweaked already is the size of the marker. BF3 has ok sized markers, PS2 has 4-5 times bigger

That said, 3D spotting in BF3 is one of the reasons I only play Hardcore.

Higlo also mentioned some advanced spotting cert for the squad leader cert tree. Speculate away

Knocky · 2012-03-21, 05:54 AM

mhigby
@psucom those overhead blobs at GDC were temp and not functioning properly. Not really indicative of our spotting at launch.

w00t

Hamma · 2012-03-21, 10:34 AM

Thanks for posting that - was checking to see if it was

kaffis · 2012-03-21, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Erendil

I'm not too concerned about uniform colors or camo patterns giving someone a gameplay advantage.

From what we've seen, there's not a whole lot of concealment in PS2 so soldiers are going to stick out pretty easily in most cases regardless of uniform color/pattern, esp if they're moving.

Oh, I agree. There's not a whole lot of concealment in PS2; it follows the sci-fi warfare trope that factions proudly display their colors and insignia in bold colors that stand out and intimidate their enemies. The whole Space Marine syndrome. But yeah, that's why I'm not concerned about UI elements that can mark targets. They weren't really hidden to begin with.

Originally Posted by Erendil

Color blindness is a tricky one tho to be sure. IMO games should be designed to tailor at least somewhat to the people who have some degree of this condition, which is why for example I'm okay for enemy identifiers (including at least their name and optionally some sort of "enemy" symbol or possibly their empire's logo) to appear above the heads of non-concealed enemies who are in your particular LoS that you've painted with your crosshairs for a second or so. That way they'd be marked for you and you alone and you wouldn't be given any more info than a color-seeing individual might get standing in your place.

In this regard, I tend to be fairly liberal. I'd be fine with the middle quarter of your screen counting as "in your crosshairs" for this purpose. What I don't want to see is for people with some color handicaps ending up being more hesitant to shoot a target they've noticed, but are still waiting to identify (by careful scrutiny of the exact shade in comparison to other things around it or by waiting for a UI element to IFF them) whether or not to pull the trigger. Nor should they have to actually train their crosshairs (meaning that a non-handicapped person could have already been shooting!) to do so.

That said, I'm fine with several of the ideas on your list. Darkening the UI element for "indistinct" targets at night, limiting the maximum number of marked targets, etc. are all fine notions to keep it under control for everybody, and don't discriminate between those with difficulties and those without.

Tamas · 2012-03-21, 11:37 AM

It needs to be reduced in size.

Eyeklops · 2012-03-21, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by kaffis

What I don't want to see is for people with some color handicaps ending up being more hesitant to shoot a target they've noticed, but are still waiting to identify (by careful scrutiny of the exact shade in comparison to other things around it or by waiting for a UI element to IFF them) whether or not to pull the trigger. Nor should they have to actually train their crosshairs (meaning that a non-handicapped person could have already been shooting!) to do so.

That said, I'm fine with several of the ideas on your list. Darkening the UI element for "indistinct" targets at night, limiting the maximum number of marked targets, etc. are all fine notions to keep it under control for everybody, and don't discriminate between those with difficulties and those without.

If they keep a marker for friendlies, IFF for color blind players may become a non-issue because no marker = enemy. In fact, no marker for enemies would make IFF easier for many people. If a player with extreme color blindness can only see shades of gray, what is easier to identify? Shades of gray for different color markers, or simply does the marker exist.

Skitrel · 2012-03-21, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Eyeklops

If they keep a marker for friendlies, IFF for color blind players becomes a non-issue because no marker = enemy. In fact, no marker for enemies would make IFF easier for all people. If a player with extreme color blindness can only see shades of gray, what is easier to identify? Shades of gray for different color markers, or simply does the marker exist.

Colour blind people do not see in shades of grey. Colour blindness is not black and white vision.

Eyeklops · 2012-03-21, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Colour blind people do not see in shades of grey. Colour blindness is not black and white vision.

Says who? Got a reference? Well, I disagree, and here is why:
Wikipedia - Achromatopsia
Lowvision.org - Achromatopsia
How Do Things Look
Monochromacy – Complete Color Blindness

Regardless, it was just an example. I still stand by my point that having a marker for friendlies, but no marker for enemies should be faster for IFF. Instead of thinking about color, players may learn that markers are automatic "don't shoot me tags"

Also, if you are going to try and put down my credibility, bring references to support your claims, I kindly warned you about this once. If you are going to call me out on anything, it should have been for my fallacious use of the word "all", which I have since corrected.