The flow of battle should be as clear as possible

[Varkarrus]

City of Heroes is quite fun, but it shows its age in many respects. Some are too late to be changed, like the defense and resist formulas that offer increasing returns up to a cap, Or the fact that many attacks cannot be dodged or interrupted once casting begins, no matter how long their animation is. But there are many other QOL changes that could help make the state of a fight much clearer.

 

0) Ability Cooldowns

 

To give an example; the fact that we can now see the number of seconds before we can use an ability again is one such QoL change I would suggest, if it hasn't already been implemented by the Homecoming team. Very handy!

 

1) Power Visuals +

2) Area of Effect Indicators

 

Currently, it's hard to tell if certain abilities originate from allies or enemies. I've gotten out of ground-targeted patches cast by allies without realizing. I've also been hit by enemy AoEs in missions such as the Positron 1 Task Force. Allied attacks can't be made invisible, or else players won't know be able to take advantage of them. They can't be color-coded, or else we'd lose the purpose of power customization.

 

Another problem that needs to be addressed is clear, dividing lines to where an AoE attack ends. This isn't wholly necessary for attacks without delays, as by the time the visuals begin, it's too late to step out of range, but it is definitely important for any sort of tick-based or delayed AoE.

 

Both of these problems can be addressed the same way Heroes of the Storm does it:

Here, the player, as Kael'Thas, casts flame strike on some enemies. No matter who controls Kael'Thas, the flames are the same green color, but that blue circle on the ground clearly indicates that the flame strike is cast by a member of the blue team. It also gives enemy players an indicator to where the attack will strike so they can step out of reach before it goes off.

 

City of Heroes could do something similar; team-colored ring on the ground where an AoE attack will hit, or blue lines that run parallel to the radius of a cone. If used high enough above the ground, the AoE indicator could float as well, but it should snap to the ground otherwise. I imagine this would be a tricky change, and it'd need to be applied to most abilities in the game, but it would certainly be helpful! It'd also have the added benefits of letting players get an accurate visualization of the AoE of their own powers; seeing a ring created whenever they use a PBAoE will eventually burn its way into their mind, until they can visualize it before casting.

 

3) Buffs, Debuffs, and CC

 

Being a support in City of Heroes is hard. Enemy health is pretty clearly visible; health bars float above their heads, indicating how close they are to death, and that's all damage-dealers need to worry about most of the time, but supports have a lot more to consider. At least right now, you can look at the team window and see which allies need you to work your healing mumbo jumbo on them, or which ones need to be revived. However, there have been times when I try to heal an ally only for my abilities to not go through because they are halfway across the map.

 

Furthermore, it's nigh impossible to tell which enemies need to be debuffed, and which allies need buffs or CC cleanses. There are little debuff effects on enemies; downwards facing arrows that indicate which stat is being reduced, but in the sheer visual chaos of a City of Heroes fight, it's very hard to see them clearly.

 

I feel many of these problems can be fixed by working some UI magic. Add a toggled option to show ally health bars above their head, colored differently from enemy health bars so you can tell them apart at a glance. Furthermore, include clear, readable UI icons near health bars that list buffs and debuffs. And I don't mean the current per-power buff icons, but rather "universal" icons that indicate things like "damage/defense/resist is reduced/increased etc" or "mez effect applied", preferably with a special outline if you are the source of that buff/debuff.

 

That way, you can look at an archvillain and instantly tell "oh shit it's got a HUGE boost to attack," and then either be "better plop some -DMGs on it or else we'll get a team wipe" if you're a support, or "oh shit I better run away!" if you're a scrapper!

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Sounds like a lot of work for the HC team with no real reason beyond pleasing meta gamers that want less immersion. Also there are not bosses so big and bad as to make any good player go oh shit we need to debuff this guy asap or run away.

 

Considering Offenders have had no issues over powering GMs for years, and never seem to have trouble keeping the buff and debuffs stacked up tells me they dont really need much help on that end.

 

You have to remember this isa  non paid volunteer dev team now, and asking them to devote that kind of energy to something I doubt all that many would care about in the end compared to new arcs and ATs and power sets.

 

 

[MunkiLord]

23 minutes ago, Varkarrus said:

 

"oh shit I better run away!" if you're a scrapper!

Scrapperlock makes this impossible. 

[Megajoule]

I believe the traditional response is "learn to play".

[Rathulfr]

Some of these items are already in-game as UI options: cooldown timers, health bars on players and pets, etc.  Others just require occasionally moving the camera or getting some elevation (e.g., by hovering above the fray).  And a few of them are just tough luck: the engine is 20 years old (I believe they started working on the game in 1999), before such niceties were even considered, much less considered essential.  CoH was a pioneer, and it definitely shows its age in these regards.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Rathulfr

[Varkarrus]

18 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

I believe the traditional response is "learn to play".

It's fake difficulty, though...?

 

Stiff controls and visual clutter can make a game harder, but not more fun. If the game is made harder in other ways without addressing sources of fake difficulty, it becomes too hard and frustrating. If QoL things are done to streamline gameplay, then there's room to make things more difficult in more fun and meaningful ways.

 

Consider macros and bindings; the game would be more challenging without them, wouldn't it? If they weren't in-game, certain things would be harder, and would need numbers adjustments to prevent them from being frustrating. If someone asked for macros and bindings to make the game easier in that respect, would you tell them to learn to play?

 

I would rather be forced to respond quickly to changes in the flow of battle that are immediately obvious, than I would to be forced to keep an eye out for difficult to track information that I have plenty of time to notice and react to.

 

3 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

Some of these items are already in-game as UI options: cooldown timers, health bars on players and pets, etc.  Others just require occasionally moving the camera or getting some elevation (e.g., by hovering above the fray).  And a few of them are just tough luck: the engine is 20 years old (I believe they started working on the game in 1999), before such niceties were even considered, much less considered essential.  CoH was a pioneer, and it definitely shows its age in these regards.

 

yeah, the cooldown timers were an example, which is why I labelled them as number 0. Health bars on players and pets are great, too! I'd just like a Little bit more info.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Varkarrus

[Heraclea]

If I find myself having difficulty seeing what is going on in a fight, that's a cue to turn the particles way down.  I have to remember to turn them back up, because I base edit and need to see what others will see. 

[TheAdjustor]

Well given our very large raids, the last thing I want on my screen is more stuff creating more lag.

[Snakebit]

I could get behind optional client side range and radius indicators if they were subtle. Maybe a toggle that overlaid your UI with low opacity range rings. Yeah, I could see that. 

 

I'd bet on it would being an ironclad bitch to implement though. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by cejmp

[Lost Ninja]

I'm not sure that I agree with the OP's reasons, however the UI IMO needs a massive overhaul.

 

I would also like to be able to filter buffs I have provided from buffs that the player has received. Very difficult to see when to re-buff specific players in a team situation when there is are 15-30 tiny little icons. (This is on the team/league display, not anything new just make it easier to read as is.)