Bad UI: Endurance meter becomes less noticeable when low

[Kai Moon]

This mirrors the health bar's color change, so was probably intended to be a similar feedback or warning. But it's subtle - literally 19 years before I noticed - so fails this purpose. If anything, by reducing the contrast, it does the opposite - it's harder to tell when your endurance is low.

[Rudra]

I never even noticed the END bar doing that.... 😲

[FupDup]

[Akisan]

Funnily enough, the only times I'd noticed that effect when I was tired enough that I could barely play (and had chalked it up to seeing things because I was so out of it). Maybe it'd be more noticible if it turned blue -> purple -> magenta, instead of just desaturating?

[biostem]

While on the subject of low end, is there any rhyme or reason as to which specific toggles get shut off when you bottom out your end?  It seems to be random...

[Rudra]

48 minutes ago, biostem said:

While on the subject of low end, is there any rhyme or reason as to which specific toggles get shut off when you bottom out your end?  It seems to be random...

Probably is. Every time one of my Brutes gets shut down by a Sapper, the toggles I lose are always different even on the same character.

[Akisan]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

While on the subject of low end, is there any rhyme or reason as to which specific toggles get shut off when you bottom out your end?  It seems to be random...

 

Sort of, yes.  Toggles don't continously drain endurance or offset recovery, they periodically drain a small amount of endurance (I don't know if more expensive toggles tick faster or take bigger bits of endurance - that'd take a seriously specific testing setup).  If a toggle tries to do this and can't, it detoggles - so the "random order" is the order in which they tried (and failed) to pay their upkeep costs.

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, biostem said:

While on the subject of low end, is there any rhyme or reason as to which specific toggles get shut off when you bottom out your end?  It seems to be random...

 

There's no order of execution, no "this toggle has priority Red Alpha Domino, watch it closely" code.  Toggle pulse rate isn't standardized, either, some are 0.2s, some 0.5, some 2.0, World of Confusion is 4.0s... and server-client communication occurs in 0.132s intervals (Arcanatime).  So when you run out of endurance, the next toggle which tries to tick over is the one that shuts off first.

 

You could probably figure it all out, exactly, by keeping track of when you turned on each toggle, toggle activation periods, server ticks and recovery ticks, and collate the data to derive a precise timing for everything.  You'd have to do it every time you zone. and you'd have to use a network monitor with an active overlay over the game screen (you're not going eyeball 0.2s and 0.132s intervals reliably), and you'd want to accumulate data for a couple of minutes to get an accurate result.  It'd be more work than reward for the effort, in my opinion.

 

Alternately, you can "rule of thumb" it by looking up the toggles on CoD and assuming that the ones with the shortest activation periods are going to shut down first.

[Ghost]

19 hours ago, Akisan said:

Funnily enough, the only times I'd noticed that effect when I was tired enough that I could barely play (and had chalked it up to seeing things because I was so out of it). Maybe it'd be more noticible if it turned blue -> purple -> magenta, instead of just desaturating?

It’s the game telling you to “stop playing and get some sleep”

[Akisan]

12 hours ago, Luminara said:

Toggle pulse rate isn't standardized, either, some are 0.2s, some 0.5, some 2.0, World of Confusion is 4.0s... and server-client communication occurs in 0.132s intervals (Arcanatime).

 

As horrifying as this is, it makes me hope that more expensive toggles both tick faster and drain more per tick. Having that pulse rate not correlated to toggle expense would be madness-inducing.

 

1 hour ago, Ghost said:

It’s the game telling you to “stop playing and get some sleep”

 

But... then how else would I guarantee dreams about being my characters?

[Luminara]

50 minutes ago, Akisan said:

As horrifying as this is, it makes me hope that more expensive toggles both tick faster and drain more per tick. Having that pulse rate not correlated to toggle expense would be madness-inducing.

 

Quick examples using corruptor values:

 

World of Confusion activates once every 4 seconds and has a cost of 1.3 endurance.  1.3/4=0.325

Steamy Mist activates once every 0.5 seconds and has a cost of 0.26 endurance.  0.26/0.5=0.52

Maneuvers activates once every 2 seconds and has a cost of 0.78 endurance.  0.78/2=0.39

Telekinesis activates once every 0.5 seconds and has a cost of 1.95 endurance.  1.95/0.5=3.9

 

Every toggle in the game is just a power that the engine automatically reactivates at set intervals (the activation period).  So is every auto power.  And the what we refer to as "endurance per second" is a simple algebraic translation of the two values, X (real endurance cost) divided by Y (activation period).  There is no development rule which states, "for every X activation period, Y endurance must be paid", so there's no direct correlation between activation period and endurance cost.  Both are determined by the person or people designing the power, what the power is intended to do, how the power needs to function... and, sometimes, arbitrarily imposed limitations or relaxations of rules.  Most toggles are intended to be used, though, so their endurance cost is firmly within the realm of manageability.  In the few cases of toggles which aren't intended to be always active, restrictions are applied.  Sometimes that means "The game's going to shut this off after a set amount of time, period, end of discussion, bye-bye now", and other times it means, "Word, dawg, this joint's gonna cost ya a WHOLE FUCKIN' LOT o' juice and ya ain't gonna be able to keep the motor runnin'.  Tell ya momma I said 'WASSUP!'".

[Rudra]

38 minutes ago, Luminara said:

2 hours ago, Akisan said:

As horrifying as this is, it makes me hope that more expensive toggles both tick faster and drain more per tick. Having that pulse rate not correlated to toggle expense would be madness-inducing.

 

Quick examples using corruptor values:

 

World of Confusion activates once every 4 seconds and has a cost of 1.3 endurance.  1.3/4=0.325

Steamy Mist activates once every 0.5 seconds and has a cost of 0.26 endurance.  0.26/0.5=0.52

Maneuvers activates once every 2 seconds and has a cost of 0.78 endurance.  0.78/2=0.39

Telekinesis activates once every 0.5 seconds and has a cost of 1.95 endurance.  1.95/0.5=3.9

 

Every toggle in the game is just a power that the engine automatically reactivates at set intervals (the activation period).  So is every auto power.  And the what we refer to as "endurance per second" is a simple algebraic translation of the two values, X (real endurance cost) divided by Y (activation period).  There is no development rule which states, "for every X activation period, Y endurance must be paid", so there's no direct correlation between activation period and endurance cost.  Both are determined by the person or people designing the power, what the power is intended to do, how the power needs to function... and, sometimes, arbitrarily imposed limitations or relaxations of rules.  Most toggles are intended to be used, though, so their endurance cost is firmly within the realm of manageability.  In the few cases of toggles which aren't intended to be always active, restrictions are applied.  Sometimes that means "The game's going to shut this off after a set amount of time, period, end of discussion, bye-bye now", and other times it means, "Word, dawg, this joint's gonna cost ya a WHOLE FUCKIN' LOT o' juice and ya ain't gonna be able to keep the motor runnin'.  Tell ya momma I said 'WASSUP!'".

That was great! Another instance where I wish we had a combined laugh + thumbs up emoji! 😆

[Akisan]

That's... every bit as horrifying as I suspected it might be, based on your first clarifying post, @Luminara.  I can't even imagine how often powers are/were bugged at some point in development because a dev mis-matched cost & actvation frequency.

[Luminara]

Just now, Akisan said:

That's... every bit as horrifying as I suspected it might be, based on your first clarifying post, @Luminara.  I can't even imagine how often powers are/were bugged at some point in development because a dev mis-matched cost & actvation frequency.

 

They aren't mix and match things.  Every power is self-contained, as opposed to the "everything's on a table and cross-referenced" theory that we all believed a long time ago.  Powers are created in individual definition files, .defs (which are later compiled together, but still as separate files.  like a .zip, but in a format usable by the engine and not compressed).  Altering activation period or endurance cost entails opening the power's .def, so a developer wouldn't be likely to go into Combat Jumping's .def and edit it by mistake, thinking he/she was adjusting Maneuvers, for instance.

 

In cases where names are close enough for a mis-click to cause him/her to open the wrong .def, it's highly likely that other factors would make the mistake immediately apparent when the power was tested.  If Combat Jumping's activation period were set to 2.0s, the fact that you were taking fall damage every time you jumped with CJ on would make it pretty noticeable that there was a problem (the problem being that CJ's effects have a duration of 0.75s (CJ's activation period is 0.5s)).  Similarly, if one were to mindlessly Ctrl+V World of Confusion's endurance cost,1.3, into Combat Jumping's .def, the massive drain on endurance when it was toggled on (2.6 endurance every second) would tell you exactly what you did wrong.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

That was great! Another instance where I wish we had a combined laugh + thumbs up emoji! 😆

 

I think I've seen that porn.  Or, at least, the face.  The thumb was... not visible.

[TheZag]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

I think I've seen that porn.  Or, at least, the face.  The thumb was... not visible.

 

Thats ---> 😱 <--- this one.