Health bars

[Ykkrosh]

I added some. They look like this. They're displayed in the same cases as the selection circles: either when a unit is selected, or when the mouse is hovering over it, or when it's inside a bandbox that you're dragging. The bars always render as green-on-red (regardless of player).

Entity templates can use <StatusBars><HeightOffset>5.0</HeightOffset></StatusBars> to control the position of the health bars, above the ground the unit's walking on. The code determining the sizes and textures etc is in mods/public/simulation/components/StatusBars.js.

Are there changes that should be made here?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Tried them out in-game. They look fantastic and add an essential ingredient to making the game feel like a polished game.

My preference would be to not show the health bar upon hover. It's just a personal thing, that as I am moving my cursor over the game world I don't want to see health bars popping up everywhere (same with auras). I do like that the bars show up when bandboxing. This lets the player know that the units are successfully being added to the selection.

Anyone else?

[Wijitmaker]

They used to have a little black outline around them (and the stamina bars). I liked this because it helped outline them and 'pop' them out of the terrain.

[Mythos_Ruler]

They used to have a little black outline around them (and the stamina bars). I liked this because it helped outline them and 'pop' them out of the terrain.

Jason liked them. I hated them. lol They seemed bulky, especially with the addition of the stamina bar.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I think the bars should show on hover. If you find this annoying then perhaps it should be limited to just when hovering over buildings? (We don't have to have them show on hover, just Erik made a good point about being able to see the health of an enemy building while you're tearing it down. With hover, you don't have to deselect your units to see that.)

[Mythos_Ruler]

Hovering over buildings I can accept. One of the other major benefits to not showing them when hovering over units is that there is a bright distinction between what it looks like when units are selected and when they are not.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Perhaps buildings should have extra wide bars like in BFME? (I think building health bars were about 4 or 5 times wider. That would let you know you were hovering over a building and not hovering over one of your units that's attacking the building. Otherwise, you might be watching one of your own units die from arrows or something while you think you are watching the building go down fast.)

[feneur]

Some good points here I still think there might be some value in being able to see the health bars of units on hover as well, but I can see that it can be a problem, so it's fine to let them go for units. Bigger health bars for buildings And I really think, hmm I can't remember the word right now, but the "loyalty" of the building, should show as well, would be really helpful when you're trying to take over a building and you have to judge whether the process is fast enough or you'd better get those units out of there for the moment (Since it's not implemented yet it's not too important for now, but I thought I should mention it for the future )

[Mythos_Ruler]

Right.

Green -- Health

Blue -- Stamina

Yellow -- Fidelity/Loyalty

Orange -- Resource (kudos to Brian for this one)

Speaking of Loyalty, we have some awesome unused animations in the game for infantry that we can use when they are capturing a building. You can see the Spartans in the background using these animations

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[feneur]

Right.

Green -- Health

Blue -- Stamina

Yellow -- Fidelity/Loyalty

Orange -- Resource (kudos to Brian for this one)

Speaking of Loyalty, we have some awesome unused animations in the game for infantry that we can use when they are capturing a building. You can see the Spartans in the background using these animations

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Sounds good indeed, and yeah having the resource amount as a bar like the was a good idea Ah, I actually think that looks quite a bit like the animations used for that same purpose in EE2, it was a while since I played it though so I could be wrong

[Ykkrosh]

Added resource supply bars. Made building bars bigger (you can edit the sizes in template_structure.xml etc). Changed it so nothing happens when hovering on a unit (but I'm not sure I like the lack of visual feedback).

[Mythos_Ruler]

Awesome sauce. I messed with the bar sizes a bit. I am starting to agree with the hovering for units, but I am ambivalent.

[k776]

I strongly believe that removing the unit hover ring/health bars was a mistake. There is no way to tell which unit is going to be selected now if I go to click. Not only that, but I can't select a group of units and then hover over an enemy unit to check his health, which makes quick tactics (like finding the weakest to kill) more cumbersome.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I like the old bar sizes better. Michael's made them too small for me to comfortably see. The old building bars were also twice as wide as they are now. I definitely like the other sizes better.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Cool. They are easily changed back. I just don't want thick health bars. It ruins the immersion for me, and I don't look at them too closely anyway, that's what the health bar in the UI is for. Plus, our game will be more about groups than individual soldiers (at least that's how I will play it). But like I said, I'm fairly ambivalent.

I strongly believe that removing the unit hover ring/health bars was a mistake. There is no way to tell which unit is going to be selected now if I go to click.

I agree.

Not only that, but I can't select a group of units and then hover over an enemy unit to check his health, which makes quick tactics (like finding the weakest to kill) more cumbersome.

I strongly disagree with you here. Why should I know so easily how healthy a bad guy is who is charging at me? As far as I can remember AOE games did not do what you propose. There should be a little mystery to some things, IMHO. I am even weary of being able to tell the health of an enemy unit by clicking it, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on that score, since it is an RTS staple.

[k776]

Not only that, but I can't select a group of units and then hover over an enemy unit to check his health, which makes quick tactics (like finding the weakest to kill) more cumbersome.

I strongly disagree with you here. Why should I know so easily how healthy a bad guy is who is charging at me? As far as I can remember AOE games did not do what you propose. There should be a little mystery to some things, IMHO. I am even weary of being able to tell the health of an enemy unit by clicking it, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on that score, since it is an RTS staple.

Well, two things here.

Firstly, as you already stated, You can already click a unit to find it's health. Having it appear on hover isn't showing new information, just the same stuff faster. Faster info == faster gameplay. Faster gameplay = need for better tactics. better tactics = more enjoyable gaming experience. Granted, there is a point where too much information can become too much. I don't believe that to be the case here.

Secondly, consistency is key. If you allow hover on one thing, you need to allow hover on all things. Resources, units, buildings etc. To have inconsistent UI causes confusion for the user.

The solution to all these issues might be, rather than on hover, have a hotkey ('I'?), that when pressed, shows the health for all entities within the viewport. Is there a reason that wouldn't be acceptable?

[Mythos_Ruler]

nah, might as well do the hovering.

[Shield Bearer]

AOE 3 had 'alt' as the key to show all health bars. it was quite useful at times, but i hardly ever used it.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I think we'll probably use 'alt' for switching attack-types.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Thanks for switching the bars back. I agree about not making them too thick (They were a bit too thick in BFME.)

Edited October 3, 2010 by WhiteTreePaladin

[Ykkrosh]

They used to have a little black outline around them (and the stamina bars). I liked this because it helped outline them and 'pop' them out of the terrain.

Hmm, it sounds like more people disagree than agree with this. The colours look sufficiently distinct from our terrain textures (which are not highly saturated) to me, and the shading on the bars makes them stand out a bit more, and the bars aren't so important they should dominate the display, so I'm tending to think the current approach is okay. Would other people prefer outlines? (If so, maybe produce a screenshot mockup to show what they'd look like?)

I strongly believe that removing the unit hover ring/health bars was a mistake. There is no way to tell which unit is going to be selected now if I go to click.

Changed it back.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Thanks for switching the bars back. I agree about not making them too thick (They were a bit too thick in BFME.)

The ones in BfMEII were ginormous and useless, IMHO, since all the soldiers were stuck in battalions and essentially not their own man, so to speak.

The colours look sufficiently distinct from our terrain textures (which are not highly saturated) to me, and the shading on the bars makes them stand out a bit more, and the bars aren't so important they should dominate the display, so I'm tending to think the current approach is okay.

This.

[Ykkrosh]

I added rank icons too. Do they work okay?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Honestly? I find them unnecessary and cluttery. Let's see what k776 says.

[Wijitmaker]

I'll throw in my 2 cents again... IMHO rank symbols are important if the player isn't familiar enough with the other visual indicators (textures, helmets, etc). If there was a simple system such as basic: no helmet, advanced: silver helmet, elite: gold helmet - then I agree, it wouldn't be needed. But, I don't think units are that simple anymore?

Knowing what units are ranked and what aren't (without single selecting in the UI) is important in gameplay as you make decisions on what units should engage the enemies units (for leveling up or for fodder or for a sure victory in a skirmish)

If the player is familiar enough with the unit's plain appearance, then allow them to toggle off rank in the config. I would assume that most first time players won't know 0 A.D. and they won't know history to the extents that the people reading this forum do.

Westwood RTS games have them, I personally never had a complaint with using them.

Hmm, it sounds like more people disagree than agree with this. The colours look sufficiently distinct from our terrain textures (which are not highly saturated) to me, and the shading on the bars makes them stand out a bit more, and the bars aren't so important they should dominate the display, so I'm tending to think the current approach is okay. Would other people prefer outlines? (If so, maybe produce a screenshot mockup to show what they'd look like?)

Yeah, I'm color blind, so I'm speaking for a minority. The outline I'd recommend would just be a simple 1px border around the health bar (it used to be a sprite - I think, but I could see how some would think it was bulky)