Author Topic: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry  (Read 15917 times)

Offline djinn

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #30 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:22 »
The bottom line is, they are fun. That goes with FH2 policy. With no counter from another dev, because Natty says so

Immersive HUD and servers using this, maybe a couple days a week.

Then, there is the extreme: vicious mod

Offline Ahonen

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #31 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:08 »

Do you think it is about that one thing alone?... There is more to making a mod and maintaining a playerbase than to look at singular things and make an easy question like that. There are literary thousands of discussions about features, assets, tweaks, setting etc in a game, and we have them daily within the dev- and test team.
. If we didnt want such a crucial core-feature as hit indicators or kill messages, do you really think we wouldnt have implemented that from start?.... I can't write an essay about how games are designed here, so instead I use the simpler and more straight (bit perhaps a bit rude) wording: it stays, and we have hundreds of hours of thinking, planning, designing and experience to back the reasons up. Honestly.

If you say so.
I suspect it has to do with avoiding frustrating people because a well hidden TD would be "too" effective?
Stuff like that.
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Offline Natty

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #32 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:11 »
The bottom line is, they are fun. That goes with FH2 policy. With no counter from another dev, because Natty says so

Im sure we have devs that wants it gone. we dont agree on everything, but personal preferences are irrelevant when you have a team of 20+ devs and 50+ testers. removing hitindicators and killmessages three years after release? makes me lol. :-\

If you say so.
I suspect it has to do with avoiding frustrating people because a well hidden TD would be "too" effective?
Stuff like that.

oh no no.. not at all.. it is because I wanna see who I killed. and I want to know what is going on on the battlefield. if the tank that just killed me got fragged by a zook, I wanna know that, and who in my team did it. This is Battlefield awareness, one of the core fun things in playing.
Explain to me where the fun is for me, shooting a guy and not knowing A) who it is and B) if I hit him. How is that fun? I might as well play with bots, then right? In SP games the enemies have no names. MP games are as you can read in its name MultiPlayer, a game Vs other players.
« Last Edit: 26-09-2010, 14:09:34 by Natty »

Offline Ahonen

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #33 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:55 »

oh no no.. not at all.. it is because I wanna see who I killed. and I want to know what is going on on the battlefield. if the tank that just killed me got fragged by a zook, I wanna know that, and who in my team did it. This is Battlefield awareness, one of the core fun things in playing.
Explain to me where the fun is for me, shooting a guy and not knowing A) who it is and B) if I hit him. How is that fun?

You can see who killed you and who got killed without seeing what they used, leaving only the names but not the vehicle/weapons on the kill list (as suggested by Reporter).

And about the fun of shooting someone:
I shoot someone to prevent him from achiveing his own objective: I shoot AT infantry to protect our tanks. I shoot light tanks and recon planes to blind the enemy, leaving them without scouts. I nade MG gunners so that my squad can move forward.
I don't care who it is, it is the enemy, and I want to win, thus I kill him as needed to protect our assets and open the way to flags.
-A certain plumber took 'shrooms when he failed to rescue his girlfriend from being raped by a gorilla. His whole experience was documented in a game.

Offline Butcher

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #34 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:41 »
I think the biggest fun in FH2 is to get some "personal duels": e.g: you have seen that player X has killed you several times and you are keen to get your revenge. - creates some intense battles
Also the kill messages are generally a good oversight of the battlefield, you see there is a lot of action around the maps - this keeps you informed and you also dont get bored if you have to run long distances (you can read whats going on).
Still there was a situation today where a mate got shot by a pak40 (farm) on operation cobra - of course i knew immediately where the target was and could return fire. - thats of course a bit broken

All in all I think taking the kill messages away would kill a bit of the fun of FH2.
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Offline Natty

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #35 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:52 »
I don't care who it is, it is the enemy, and I want to win, thus I kill him as needed to protect our assets and open the way to flags.

sounds not like you get anything out from playing with other humans then.

Offline Ahonen

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #36 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:36 »
I think the biggest fun in FH2 is to get some "personal duels": e.g: you have seen that player X has killed you several times and you are keen to get your revenge. - creates some intense battles

So you care more about your personnal vendetta than being useful to your team?
I've seen people drive Tigers all the way to the enemy just to kill that one Achilles, get killed moments later from a PIAT rush, leaving the Germans without a precious Tiger when they needed it to break through the center part of Totalize.
How's that intense for the rest of the team?


sounds not like you get anything out from playing with other humans then.

What?
Humans are the finest opponents to fight and play with in a game.
I care about who I play with, my squad members and team mates, and I care about the enemy being human, but who exactly the guy I just shot is, I don't.
« Last Edit: 26-09-2010, 14:09:55 by Ahonen »
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Offline Butcher

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #37 on: 26-09-2010, 14:09:54 »
I think the biggest fun in FH2 is to get some "personal duels": e.g: you have seen that player X has killed you several times and you are keen to get your revenge. - creates some intense battles

So you care more about your personnal vendetta than being useful to your team?
I've seen people drive Tigers all the way to the enemy just to kill that one Achilles, get killed moments later from a PIAT rush, leaving the team without a precious Tiger when we needed it to break through the center part of Totalize.


sounds not like you get anything out from playing with other humans then.

What?
Humans are the finest opponents to fight and play with in a game.
I care about who I play with, my squad members and team mates, and I care about the enemy being human, but who exactly the guy I just shot is, I don't. I will if he joins my team next round of course.

Well i still think its more fun with the kill-messages. another part thats cool a bout fh2 is that there is a "core-community" that sticks to the mod - so you know the people and you meet them often - its just fun if you get these kind of duels.
And for the tige example: that can of course happen, but you will be never safe of people who want to use stuff to push their stats - so you would need to get rid of the whole point-list (TAB) - and that would suck.
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Offline Ahonen

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #38 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:41 »

Well i still think its more fun with the kill-messages.

As said, since everyone wants them, better leave them in, but at least don't show what was used for the kills.
-A certain plumber took 'shrooms when he failed to rescue his girlfriend from being raped by a gorilla. His whole experience was documented in a game.

Offline sn00x

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #39 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:02 »
such small things could allways be testet server side for a week or two and see if people like it or not, Before saying "every one will hate it and empty the servers!"

Offline Gezoes

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #40 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:02 »
No.


And why would my team not benefit from a dedicated attempt at taking out that sniper/tank/etc wich is ripping us to pieces? You presume one would misuse important assets for that, I just need a Faust/explosives and a gun. On Mareth I mined a lot of tanks, wich are feeling oh so safe halfway across the map.

"No way there is an enemy here, I feel so safe, haha, blam, ratatatatatatata!"
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
"WTF!!>>??"
"Boom!"

I'd say that benefits the team  8)

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Offline Ahonen

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #41 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:02 »
No.

You presume one would misuse important assets for that, I just need a Faust/explosives and a gun. On Mareth I mined a lot of tanks, wich are feeling oh so safe halfway across the map.


I don't presume, I see that every day.
People rushing with Fireflies and things like that.

You said you could achive such feats without wasting assets; good.
But not everyone can do that, and most simply take the biggest thing available to carry out their revenge.

And how would removing only the weapons/vehicles used from the kill list (and leaving the names) affect your ability to carry out said revenge?
-A certain plumber took 'shrooms when he failed to rescue his girlfriend from being raped by a gorilla. His whole experience was documented in a game.

Offline Natty

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #42 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:20 »
You're in a tank.
you blow up.
Someone killed you.

You're telling me the game would be more fun if you had absolutely no idea who killed you and with what weapon? Give me a break.

Offline phillip

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #43 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:26 »
Stop believing that you can have the element of surprise for more than 15 seconds in a game.

That's half the problem with public play.  You sneak into a flagzone undetected and one idiot decides to shoot someone sitting on a flag/nebel/mortar before the flag is grey because it is an easy kill.  In real life , nobody knows you are there.  In the game the entire team likely does now.  There is no lasting surprise attack.  People die and come back to life to hunt you down.  Kill messages or not.  You can't have ambush spots that work for more than 1 or 2 kills.  In rare instances you can find a spot where you can mow down the enemy, but they can't find a good way to flank you because of the layout of statics.

Kill messages help the social nature of the game.  Make it so that you care and want to vanquish your enemies.  If you own/get owned by someone, you can start a dialog.  You feel connected to that player.  Connections build community.

Offline djinn

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Re: Removing the hit-indicator and kill messages for infantry
« Reply #44 on: 26-09-2010, 15:09:38 »
Well, not ALL things need testing

There are basic principles of game theory that are considered.

Feedback: a gamer needs a valid response to his action. Thats why the hit-detection is there. Usually, more than one form of feedback. Why we also have kill messages

Arguably, you could do without one, but according to game theory, expect frustration and constant uncertainty aka, flame-quit

I'd say a robust UI in the form of a custom FH2 Menu or @ least, the external toolkit with various degrees of immersive HUD from simply no-hit-detection, dash bar etc, to no crosshair etc.

And then, a server employing that say once or twice a week, with option of taking it on more times, depending polls etc.